20 Things You Didn’t Know About Breeze Airways
Breeze Airways is a new airline that has recently launched. The company claims that its mission is to provide air travel for underserved areas. It’s an exciting new business venture that was launched by a seasoned professional in the airline industry and it is classified as an alternative airline. If you haven’t yet heard about Breeze Airways don’t feel bad. It’s a brand new service that has not yet received a lot of press. Our research into the new airline has revealed some interesting facts worth sharing. To bring you up to speed, here are 20 things you probably didn’t know about Breeze Airways.
1. The company was founded under a different name
According to Wikipedia, Breeze Airways was first established and launched on July 31, 2018. It was then known as Moxy Airways. The company is headquartered in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. It has since changed its name and it now operates under the name Breeze Airways since May 27, 2021. The airline as it stands has only been in operation for a few months.
2. Breeze Airways is starting small
So far, Breeze Airways maintains a small group of focus cities with a small fleet of planes. They currently operate a fleet size of 13 aircraft with service to Charleston, New Orleans, Norfolk, and Tampa. They offer passengers access to 16 destinations. The inaugural flight of Breeze Airways, also known as Breeze Aviation Group, Inc. was flown from Tampa International Airport to the Charleston International Airport on May 27, 2021.
3. Breeze has expanded its flight offerings
As of July 2021, Breeze expanded its operations to include Huntsville, Alabama, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Hartford, Connecticut, and Tampa, Florida. Other destinations are Louisville, Kentucky, Akron and Columbus, Ohio, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Providence Rhode Island, Charleston, South Carolina, San Antonio, Texas, and Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia.
4. The Breeze Airways Feet consists of three types of aircraft
When you travel on Breeze Airways you will fly aboard one of three models of aircraft they have secured as members of their small fleet. They currently have 10 Embraer E190 aircraft in service that were formerly Air Canada aircraft, and 3 Embraer E195 craft former Azul aircraft. We also learned that the E190 holds 108 passengers and the E195 holds up to 118 passengers.
5. Breeze Airways is planning to expand its services in a big way
When researching Breeze Airways we learned that they are planning to expand their operations and add a new type of aircraft to their existing fleet. They have placed orders for 80 Airbus A220-300 models with deliveries expected to commence in October of 2021. These aircraft will be leased from Nordic Aviation Capital. The addition of 80 extra aircraft will increase the size of the airline operation by more than seven-fold.
6. Breeze offers the best of both worlds
We also learned that Breeze Airlines plans to offer first-class flight products but they intend to offer the services at a low cost to passengers. They’re still working out the details but the airline wants to stand out from the rest of the companies in competition with them by doing things differently. So far, they’re entertaining a few different ideas including common LCC features including point-to-point route network, and extra fees for additional services so you can build your type of flight accommodations.
7. Entertainment options will be different
Breeze Airways plans to provide a different approach to in-flight entertainment. They decided not to provide the back-of-the-seat screen options for watching movies. Instead, they opted to go with a streaming service to provide entertainment via personal electronic devices. Also, they do not plan to offer a single cabin class of service, but rather multiples.
8. Breeze recently announced a new “no-frills” package
Breeze announced in August of 2021 that it will offer three main types of services for its passengers. The basic ticket is called the No frills ticket. The next level up is the Nice ticket. The top of the line is the Nicer ticket type. The differences between the three types of tickets will be in the types of food offered, the amount of legroom, and several other upgrades in amenities for comfort and entertainment. Breeze also announced that regardless of the kind of ticket that is purchased, changing or canceling their flights will not incur additional charges. The new airline is coming in on a positive note to try to build passenger loyalty and to offer services that are not always available through other carriers. Sometimes the small details can make a difference in which airlines passengers prefer to use.
9. David Neeleman is the founder of Breeze Airways
According to Crunchbase, David Neeleman is the founder and co-owner of Breeze Airways. Mr. Neeleman began his career in 1984 co-founding Morris Air, a low-fare carrier. He was the first in the airline industry to introduce an electronic ticketing system and he also pioneered a home reservation system. He won an acquisition bi for a stake in TAP Portugal in 2015, on behalf of the Gateway consortium. He has created several successful airlines including Azul, WetJet, Morris Air, and JetBlue, now adding Breeze Airways to the list. He has founded three organizations and currently serves on one board of directors in an advisory role.
10. Breeze Airways uses a complex array of technologies for its website
The Breeze Airways website is easy for visitors to use with seamless and smooth interactions, but it takes a complicated network of technologies to provide the experience. There are 38 active technologies in use to power the site. Some of the technology products used include Cloudflare Hosting, IPv6, Amazon, and several others.
11. Breeze Airways has a high traffic volume on its website
Even though Breeze Airways has recently launched itself as a new company, the number of visitors to the website has grown into tens of thousands each month. The analytics for the website shows that over the past 30 days there has been a total of 64,248 visitors to the site. This reflects an overall monthly visits growth rate that has decreased by 2.88 percent. Because of the web traffic volume, Breeze Airways has achieved a ranking of number 379,688 of the millions of websites registered on the world wide web.
12. Breeze Airways is the most popular in the United States
The largest percentage of visitors to the Breeze Airways website come from people living in the United States. Ninety-five percent of the visitors are from this country. The numbers reflect a 10.7 percent monthly visits growth rate over the past 30 days. Two percent of the visitors are from Canada with a decrease in monthly visits by 61.41 percent. One percent are from the United Kingdom with a decrease in visits of 45.76 percent. One percent of the web traffic is from India and one percent from the United Arab Emirates. These are valuable statistics for key decision-makers in the company because they show where the greatest interest in Breeze Airways is coming from. It is useful for helping to establish details for the long-term strategic plan for the company.
13. Breeze Airways is led by a core executive leadership team of five members
There are five members on the core executive leadership team of Breeze Airways. David Neeleman is the founder and chief executive officer. Trent Porter is the chief financial officer. Tom Anderson is the chief operations officer. John Varley is the chief people officer and general counsel. Lukas Johnson is the chief commercial officer. Although the team is small they are dynamic and work together to achieve great strides in accomplishing the goals established for the new airline.
14. Breeze Airways has a strong support team
The five-person core executive leadership team is supported by a group of eight supporting managers and executives. Amir Nasruddin is the vice president of technical operations and fleet programs. Jim Smith is the vice president of corporate real estate and airport development. Max Barrus is the head of planning. Chris Chiu is the director of engineering. Dee Evans is the director of information systems and software engineering. Kyle Smith is the director of technology operations and innovation. Arco Nogueira is the director of quality and chief inspector. Austin Speaker is the manager of team travel and distribution projects.
15. Breeze Airways is a venture capital-backed organization
Breeze Airways has participated in three rounds of venture capital funding. The most recent round was completed on August 18, 2021, in a Series B round. The fundraising round has raised a total of $287.3 million from its investors.
16. Investor confidence in Breeze Airways is high
We can deduce that Breeze Airways has inspired a high degree of confidence from its investors for a few different reasons. First, the company has only been in operation for a few months and it has already raised just short of $300 million in venture capital investment. Next, it has secured the financial backing of four major investors. The most recent investor to join the efforts are Knighthead Capital Management and BlackRock, both lead investors. They are joined by Sandlot Partners and Peterson Partners, also a lead investor for the Series A round of fundraising. It’s likely that having David Neeleman as the founder and standing at the helm of leadership had a profound influence on their confidence in the new airline’s likelihood of achieving success. Neeleman has a solid track record in the airline industry.
17. Breeze Airways is currently hiring
Breeze Airways has a workforce of 197 employees. The company is currently hiring to build on its existing workforce and expand its infrastructure. The move likely is to prepare for the addition of the 80 new aircraft that are scheduled to be delivered in October of 2021. Many of the 39 new jobs that are posted are for workers at the headquarters in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. The company is building the infrastructure now in preparation for a massive expansion of services.
18. Breeze Airways is expanding its operations in the South
In addition to the expansion that is taking place at the Breeze Airways headquarters, the company is also beefing up its operations in other parts of the country, predominantly in the south. They’re advertising for a materials specialist in Norfolk, Virginia, as well as one in Charleston, South Carolina, a materials planner for Tampa, Florida, and an Aircraft maintenance technician for New Orleans, Louisiana. This is exciting news for people who live in these areas as new jobs are coming into their communities as well as new air travel options.
19. Breeze Airways is a privately held organization
Breeze Airways is a privately owned company that is still under the control of its founder, David Neeleman. Other stakeholders in the company include the venture capital firms who made investments in the growth and expansion of the airline in exchange for an unspecified stake in the future profits of the company. You won’t find Breeze Airways stock shares available for investment and trading on any of the public stock exchanges because it has not yet filed for an initial public offering. In our research, we saw no indication that they will do so shortly.
20. Breeze Airways is a company to keep your eye on
Breeze Airways is a brand new player in the commercial airline industry with just a few months of service under its belt. It’s designed to provide alternative options for air travel. Breeze is on a mission to provide air travel for the underserved and to offer more comfortable accommodations for lower fares than its competition. So far the airline has made a positive impression. It’s still in the infancy stages of development but we expect to see fast expansion in eh months and years to come. Hopefully, the worldwide covid-19 pandemic will not harm its initial success.