A rendering of the ultimate Breeze Airways livery that will adorn its fleet of Airbus A220 and ... [+]
Those looking for fresh blood in the U.S. consumer air carrier market may have to wait until the coronavirus pandemic passes before a new contender enters the ring. This past week, Breeze Airways, the Utah-based air carrier in the works from JetBlue founder David Neeleman, quietly pushed back its official launch from 2020 to 2021.
The change was made in the subheading of the carrier’s pre-launch website and initially noticed by ch-aviation. Later in the week, The Points Guy, a miles and points blog, confirmed the news with a spokesman for the company.
Breeze’s delayed launch may stem from the tight operating conditions that many airlines are experiencing within the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. Most major air carriers saw passenger volumes drop into the single digits compared to travel last year at the worst of the pandemic. Now, midway into the air travel recovery, passenger volumes have only recovered to 20-25% of where they were last year.
That may not bode well for a startup air carrier that plans to operate on the margins of mainline routes across the United States. Initially, Breeze planned to run its network of single aisle aircraft between secondary markets like Louisville, KY and Jacksonville, FL without use of the hub and spoke system that major carriers use. And while there’s plenty of untapped potential in running those routes when the air industry is operating at full steam, that profitably of getting that model off the ground from scratch can easily become more challenging during a depressed economy.
Indeed, even with some traffic back in the skies, many current carriers are still operating at a loss. According to IATA data, most commercial air carriers are only profitable at passenger load volumes of around 75%. Between lower demand and social distancing measures, however, many carriers today are operating below that threshold. Delta Air Lines, notably, has capped its passenger volumes at 60% through September.
Put another way, these aren’t the best conditions in which one could launch a startup airline.
Fortunately for Breeze and Neeleman, the the upstart carrier was still in the process of gathering momentum before its upcoming launch. Ultimately, Breeze plans to operate a fleet of Airbus A220 and Embraer 195 narrowbody aircraft, but initial deliveries of those planes were only slated to start in 2021. To get off the ground sooner, Breeze planned to deploy used Azul Embraer 195 to operate its initial routes.
Breeze also hasn’t fully hired and trained its network of headquarters and frontline staff such as flight attendants and pilots — a major overhead cost for current operators.
With conavirus still disrupting the industry, Breeze can potentially take a few extra months to get its house in order and wait for new aircraft to arrive while overhead costs remain low. Hungry passengers ready for a new take on consumer air travel, unfortunately, will have to wait until at least next year.
