Breeze Airways: changing winds impact its launch and its fleet

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of tourism and travel, and in the case of Neeleman-backed Breeze Airways, the crisis has resulted in the airline's start date bouncing around, a pushback of initial Airbus deliveries and the abandoning of plans to pursue the operating certificate of Compass Airlines.

Breeze has pushed back its launch from late Oct-2020 to Mar-2021, and will pursue commercial flights at launch instead of starting operations with charter flights.

The company is unsurprisingly not disclosing any specific network plans, other than that its initial service will include three flights from an airport in the Southeastern US.

But Breeze does believe that the logic behind its business model remains solid, and has determined that the pandemic is creating even more opportunities to serve small cities.

Nevertheless, the reality is that no one can accurately predict how the economic and travel landscape will look in the US when Breeze plans to make its debut. The one certainty is that Breeze will need ample start-up financing to launch in such unprecedented times.