Breeze Airways showed off its first Alabama-built Airbus A220 on Tuesday in Mobile, and the upstart airline revealed hopes and plans for the aircraft went a lot deeper than its distinctive blue livery.
It also showed off an unusual cabin configuration central to its ambition of offering a better experience to more people: sacrificing its maximum capacity of 145 seats, this A220-300 offers 90 economy seats, 10 of which have extra legroom, and a whopping 36 business-class seats with more leg room, shoulder room and amenities.
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“This airplane is absolutely fantastic,” said Tom Anderson, chief operations officer of Breeze. “Typically there’s airplanes with amazing mission capability but maybe not-so-great economics, and sometimes airplanes with great economics but not such amazing mission capability. This airplane is magical, and it absolutely has both the ability to fly these amazing missions, great takeoff performance, and phenomenal economics …It allows us to do things other airlines can only dream of doing.”
“The A220-300 is a game-changer for us as we add long haul flights that can average five hours, including transcontinental service,” said Breeze’s founder and CEO, David Neeleman. “By the end of 2022, Breeze will have 15 A220s in service. This aircraft is the perfect addition to our fast-growing airline as we seek to bring our ‘Seriously Nice’ service to more communities across the U.S. and beyond.”
Breeze only began operations in May but has generated keen industry interest in part because of the track record of founder Neeleman, an innovator who previously co-founded Morris Air, which later became a part of Southwest; Canada’s WestJet; U.S.-based JetBlue; and the Brazilian carrier Azul Linhas Aereas.
Neeleman’s strategy is to cater to underserved secondary markets, offering direct flights. Its major hubs include Charleston, Tampa and New Orleans; Huntsville, Ala., is among its 16 markets. Its fleet so far has consisted of Embraer E190 and E195 jets that Neeleman said are best suited to flights of two hours or less. The Airbus A220 is Breeze’s pick for long-haul service that could include coast-to-coast routes in the United States as well as connections from Florida to South America.
Breeze has ordered 80 A220-300s, making it one of the jet’s major buyers alongside Delta and JetBlue. Airbus officials said Tuesday that the Final Assembly Line in Mobile has been producing them at a rate of more than one per month and is expected to hit two per month in the near future, building to four per month in a few years. Neeleman said that he expects to take delivery of one new jet per month, meaning Breeze is claiming about half the Mobile line’s output.
The A220 was initially developed by Bombardier and first assembled in Mirabel, Canada. Airbus took over the program and built a second assembly line in Mobile, where it already had an assembly line for its larger A320 family.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a severe downturn in air travel, there has been industry speculation that smaller, more efficient jets will be in high demand as the industry ramps back up. The A220 and long-range versions of the A321 have been seen as prime examples. Neeleman’s enthusiasm seems to bear that out.
“We had choices on which aircraft we wanted to take,” said Neeleman, “It’s amazing what you guys have done to create that amazing, amazing airplane.”
The A220′s strengths include efficiency and ease of maintenance, Neeleman said, but for Breeze its biggest asset is its flexibility: It’s economical to operate on short or long routes, and it’s relatively easy to change seating arrangements as demand varies. He and he even hopes to add lie-flat seats for the long routes he hopes to introduce. He said he’s pushing Airbus to give him a version with a range of around 4,000 nautical miles, up from the current max of around 3,400. “That’s going to be really a game changer,” he said.
“We do have 80 firm [orders] but we do have another 40 optioned,” Theeleman said. “And I would be shocked if we didn’t eventually get all of those airplanes because there is so much demand.”
There has been talk of a larger version of the A220, the A220-500. Jeff Knittel, Chairman & CEO of Airbus Americas, said that version has been designed and that current assembly lines can build it, but that Airbus will give the A220 program some time to “mature” before the A220-500 goes into production alongside the A220-100 and -300.
Breeze plans for its first half-dozen A220s to enter service in the second quarter of 2022. Routes haven’t yet been announced.
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