New airline begins flying from Tampa next week

TAMPA — Breeze Airways will fly its inaugural flight next week from Tampa International Airport to Charleston, South Carolina. 

The airline, founded by Jet Blue’s founder David Neeleman, will eventually fly 39 nonstop routes between 16 cities. Flights will begin Thursday, May 27 with routes between Tampa, Charleston and Hartford, Connecticut. Other destinations will be added weekly through July.

When its schedule is complete, Breeze will fly from 10 nonstop routes from Tampa including to Louisville, Oklahoma City and Richmond, Virginia. 

“A staggering 95% of Breeze routes currently have no airline serving them nonstop, Neeleman says in a statement.

At the beginning, the Salt Lake City-based airline’s fleet will be made up of 13 single class Embraer aircrafts — 10 108-seat E190s and three 118-seat E195s, according to the statement.

Breeze has also ordered 60 Airbus A220s and will announce the routes for those planes in the fall. The plan is for the 60 A220 to arrive one per month for the next five years, with the first one arriving in October.

This is the fifth airline Neelam has founded. He was forced out as CEO of JetBlue in 2007, according to Reuters, after “a Valentine’s Day ice storm stranded passengers on planes for hours, led to 1,200 flight cancellations over several days and cost the company more than $30 million.”