Another start-up airline is coming to Manchester: Breeze Airways

Breeze Airways — Courtesy

Breeze Airways — Courtesy Breeze Airways — Courtesy

By DAVID BROOKS

Monitor staff

Published: 02-27-2024 12:07 PM

Modified: 02-28-2024 10:23 AM


It’s getting hard to keep track of airlines at Manchester airport. A week after Sun Country said it was coming and four days after Spirit said it was leaving, a new low-cost carrier has announced its arrival.

Breeze Airways, a three-year-old airline based in Utah, will start service in June from Manchester to Orlando, Fla., and start seasonal service to Charleston, S.C. In the fall it will begin one-stop service to Tampa, Fla., and seasonal service to Fort Myers, Fla.

Breeze, like Spirit Airlines and Sun Country, has risen on the model of low-cost service to regional airports like Manchester, using the point-to-point model as compared to the hub-and-spoke system favored by major carriers. That is also the model for Avelo Airlines, which arrived in Manchester last June.

Breeze was originally created with the name Moxy Airlines but switched the name because it conflicted with an existing business: not the soft drink but a hotel chain. It already offers service to a number of mid-sized airports throughout New England.

Sun Country will begin once-a-week flights to its home base in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., as of August.

Spirit Airlines arrived in Manchester in 2021, the first new airline to show up there in 17 years. Its arrival was heralded as a sign of rebirth after a decade of declining traffic at the airport.

Last week, however, Spirit said it would suspend service to Orlando, its only year-round operation from Manchester, and its seasonal connection to Myrtle Beach, S.C., as of May 7. It held open the possibility of returning.

Spirit has been hurt by recalls of the Pratt & Whitney engines that it uses on most of its flights.

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