What keeps David Neeleman so positive about the outlook for his latest airline venture? In short, all the numbers for Breeze are moving in the right direction, even as the company experiences rapid growth. Sure, there are still thousands of city pairs he believes the company can connect, to the tune of a fleet size of 400, massively larger than today. But that only works if the company can fend off competition, grow the network, improve the in-cabin product, and nail reliability.
Speaking at APEX Global Expo this week the serial aviation entrepreneur shared updates on the current state of operations, as well as how he expects to keep growing, even as the company transitions out of startup mode.
Reliable above all else
“Once we’re the best on time airline in the world, then we can start refining the product even more.”
As with most other airline CEOs speaking at the event, Neeleman shared an unrelenting focus on ensuring passengers get to their destination, ideally on time. One facet of that is doing everything in the company’s power to avoid cancelling flights.
Since the end of March 2025 the company has operated approximately 40,000 flights and cancelled just one. That does not mean everything is on time. Some of those trips operated rather delayed; a few even arrived the following morning. But the overall impact to customer satisfaction scores remains positive.
To further improve those numbers Neeleman sees an opportunity to copy a program that worked well for Azul (and similar to Ryanair), where the company keeps “rescue planes” on call. These are smaller aircraft that can be dispatched on short notice, with spare parts and maintenance technicians on board. Based in Charleston, roughly the middle of the company’s network and its largest operating base, Neeleman sees significant upside potential with the plan, and minimal risk.
He also shared that Breeze acquired eight of the EgyptAir A220s, mostly for spare parts. But with the E190s no longer in the fleet he also suggested a few of the 220s could be useful as flying spares. They would not be configured to match the regular Breeze fleet, but the ability to swap them in if a plane has tech issues – something the E90s previously did – would be valuable.
Perfecting the Product
Breeze launched with plans for a more premium product on board. That was clear from the original cabin layout with 36 first class* seats. That quickly shrank to 12 seats as operations started; demand simply did not arrive as expected. It turns out Breeze just needed to wait a bit for travelers to understand its bundled products.
Neeleman describes a relatively common pattern for the carrier, as repeat customers understand the on-board experience. “It’s not like people flew us the first time we ripped them off so now they’re trying to figure out how to how to avoid us. Instead, we find from the first time someone travels us to the second to the third, the spend is higher and higher and higher as they go, as they move up our bundle ladder… And we are, in a sense, nickel and diming people, but in a way that passengers really love, where they get value.”
This translates to increased demand for the Ascent cabin on board, such that Breeze wants to swap a row of Economy for Ascent. That was announced last year at World Aviation Festival in Amsterdam, and Neeleman expected to have it in service by now. Alas, FAA certification challenges led to delays in that effort. He is optimistic that will be resolved soon, allowing the company to quickly shift the cabin configurations.
There’s also a need to improve the in-cabin F&B offerings, something the company has been talking about for some time. Neeleman would prefer that to play out via pre-orders, to minimize waste and lock in the margins. It also means more complexity for the company.
I would love to you be sitting here, you have flight tomorrow, and for us to be able to offer you a breakfast burrito or a yogurt cup and have you click on it and be able to serve it for our Ascent passengers. Or if you’re in the back, we have filet mignon sandwich for 20 bucks; do you want want one? And then we’d have it sitting there when you get on the airplane.
But that’s all logistics, and I’d rather be on time right now and not make things too complicated.
Shifting staffing
Getting to that on-time operation relies a lot of staffing. And, particularly at outstations, it depends heavily on contract staff. As Breeze does everything it can to address controllable delays that might mean bringing more of those resources in-house as growth continues.
Neeleman is focused on “above the wing” agents in the terminal as “below the wing you have so much capital cost, but in might make sense in some cities where you’re really dominant.” In above the wing roles, however, a full time employee could work at the airport a few days each week when flights operate and as a remote customer support agent on other days. That cross-training provides experience with the operation, making them even more valuable in both roles.
Loyalty Play
The Breeze rewards program is relatively new, and Neeleman sees it as successful so far. But he also believes it has significantly more potential, enough that a major revamp is in the offing. Most notable, he wants to shift towards a more traditional program, with status tiers to reward more frequent customers.
That push is based both on booking behavior – there are more repeat customers than ever – and cobrand spend patterns. Neeleman cites cobrand credit card spend at levels near those of Frontier and Spirit, even though the program is much younger. Given that success, he sees opportunity to “create some tiered business that gets people more motivated to fly Breeze, and accumulate points faster.”
What that really means, however, remains to be seen. Certainly growing earn-and-burn is good economics. But the company already seems to have hit the key target for modern loyalty programs, tapping cobrand revenue flows. Beyond that, do status tiers and aspirational rewards matter as much as smaller, more frequent and attainable redemptions? On a generational basis the market seems to be shifting. Breeze must navigate that nimbly.
Ultimately, Breeze still has plenty to prove. But it also is showing strong numbers and holding its own in an incredibly competitive market. It is backfilling where other carriers are struggling, in addition to its planned organic growth. Whether the reliability gets to the point that Neeleman is willing to invest in product remains to be seen. But at least the plan is clear.
*The premium cabin has gone through a couple branding changes, including Nicest and Ascent. Neeleman simply calls it “first class” regardless of the marketing terms used.
More news from APEX Expo 2025
- Panasonic Avionics, Intellian team for LEO ESA Terminal
- FlightPath3D Launches Destination Stories to Boost Passenger Engagement
- PaxEx PR: Neo Space Group (NSG) to Acquire Display Interactive, Setting New Standards in In-Flight Connectivity for Airlines and Passengers
- Seamless Air Alliance Publishes Antenna Buyer Handbook to Assist IFC Decisions
- LEO-Only for the Future or a Stop-Gap? Digging in to the PAC/Intellian ESA Deal
- JetBlue to Deploy Quvia Grid for Next-gen IFC Management
- United’s Kirby Pitches Political Angle, Product Investment for Growth
- Riyadh Air Picks FlightPath3D for Inflight Map
- Sun Country Plans Inflight Wi-Fi, Just Not Yet
- Reliability, then Product, on Breeze’s Agenda
A favor to ask while you're here...
Did you enjoy the content? Or learn something useful? Or generally just think this is the type of story you'd like to see more of? Consider supporting the site through a donation (any amount helps). It helps keep me independent and avoiding the credit card schlock.
Leave a Reply