Private air travel has skyrocketed since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Grady Trimble from Fox Business with more.
Breeze Airways, a new airline created by Jet Blue founder David Neelemen, was cleared to take off by the Department of Transportation on Wednesday.
The agency granted Breeze a “public convenience and necessity certificate”, which will allow the airline to transport passengers, cargo and mail for interstate travel on up to 22 aircraft for up to one year.
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According to an order submitted last year, the airline plans to fly to “abandoned and forgotten markets” in 2021 using smaller planes to reduce costs. Breeze’s initial markets will be underserved cities that currently lack nonstop service, including destinations east of the Mississippi River, in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic region.
“Many of these destinations are secondary leisure markets that have favorable costs for value-conscious travelers or second homes,” wrote the company in its application. “These markets, in many cases, support service once a day or service on some days of the week. Over time, the routes will cover the entire country.”
Photo courtesy of Breeze Airways
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Neeleman co-founded Morris Air, which was sold to Southwest Airlines in 1993. In 1998, he founded JetBlue based in New York and was its CEO until 2007, then left to found the Brazilian airline Azul, where he remains as chairman after stepping down as CEO in 2017.
According to the Breeze website, the company is hiring flight attendants, engineers and maintenance technicians. Neeleman promised that Breeze will be “the best airline in the world”.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JBLU | JETBLUE AIRWAYS | 19.90 | -0.35 | -1.73% |
| BLUE | AZUL SA | 20.33 | +1.48 | + 7.85% |
According to a company filing in September, Neeleman has a 35.9% stake in Breeze and is the company’s CEO. On August 28, Breeze raised approximately $ 83 million from equity investors through a Series A financing round.
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Breeze agreed to purchase 60 Airbus 220-300 aircraft produced in Mobile, Alabama, in December 2018, with deliveries beginning in August 2021. The A220 can accommodate up to 160 passengers. Before deliveries of the A220, Breeze plans to start service using Embraer E190 / E195 aircraft equipped with 108 or 118 seats, respectively. The E195s will include up to 28 of Azul’s own and leased aircraft.
Breeze’s corporate headquarters will remain in Darien, Connecticut, while its business operations will be based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
To obtain Federal Aviation Administration certification, Breeze will conduct maintenance of the line at its facilities in Islip, New York, and heavy maintenance at an Embraer facility in Nashville, Tennessee.