Breeze Airways, David Neeleman's new airline, is here!

It had been making the rounds for quite some time and it was the object of much interest and speculation.

Not for nothing its founder, David Neeleman, has been the driving force behind two successful airlines, JetBlue and Azul (Brazil) and the transformation that has made of TAP Air Portugal a cool brand again (for more on this see my interview with Mr. Neeleman on The Points Guy).

“Moxy no more”. Enter Breeze Airways!

With the placeholder name, under which this project has been known so far, finally gone for good, it is up to the new name in the industry, Breeze Airways, to deliver on its promise to connect mid-sized US cities that have no or few direct air connections between them.

In this regard, and to illustrate this point, Breeze Airways circulated the following map, that shows the changes in capacity at different US airports over the last decade. America’s new airline thinks there is an underserved market connection those points that have seen their number of non-hub air connections drop (by the way, a concept that in Europe has been successfully implemented by Barcelona-based Volotea)

Breeze Airways aims to be “the World’s nicest airline”. Quite a tall order! (although possibly within reach considering the track record of the experienced founding team as well as the low common denominator in the rest of the industry)

The Airbus 220-300 is, long-term (the first of the type won’t be delivered to Breeze Airways until April 2021) the aircraft designated for the task. But, in the meantime, Breeze will do with thirty leased Embraer 195s (previously operated by Azul).