Breeze Airways Grows Vero Beach, Extends Schedule Through April 2024

Update October 3, 2023: Breeze Airways has added a new route from Islip to Vero Beach and will now fly Westchester to Vero Beach 12x weekly instead of 10x weekly, which mostly confirms my previous prediction outlined below:

Breeze Airways is continuing to grow in Vero Beach, Florida (VRB) with more flights and the potential for new routes.

Breeze launched flights to Vero Beach in February 2023, becoming the only carrier to serve the airport after Elite Airways ceased operations. Breeze’s initial Vero Beach schedule consisted of just twice-weekly flights to both Hartford, Connecticut (BDL) and Westchester, New York (HPN).

Shortly after, Breeze expanded frequencies and now plans to grow to daily service on both routes. The airline also plans to only fly its Airbus A220s to Vero Beach, which offers premium seating for customers. Breeze has added a new route from Providence (PVD) to Vero Beach starting in November, which will already increase from 3x to 5x weekly soon after it begins.

Breeze isn’t done expanding in Vero Beach. The airline now plans to add even more flights to Westchester—growing from 7x to 10x weekly flights from December onward—and begin overnighting an aircraft at the airport starting December 19. Breeze overnights aircraft in a limited number of non-base stations, such as Orlando (MCO), Fort Myers (RSW), Jacksonville (JAX), and Phoenix (PHX).

Currently, Breeze operates a BDL-VRB-HPN-VRB-BDL routing with an A220, but in December, that may change. Here’s how the new schedule looks and an analysis on how it signals potential new flights or routes from Vero Beach:

Example schedule of Breeze’s BDL/HPN flights from Vero Beach
Source: Going through Breeze’s schedules in mid-January 2024

The blue and orange colors represent a path one aircraft follows. You may notice the blue on Saturday doesn’t link with the orange on Sunday. That’s because it’ll “loop” around every two weeks.

Based on this new schedule, one Airbus A220 will remain overnight and depart the following morning. However, there are four notable gaps in the schedule on Sunday/Thursday evening and Wednesday/Saturday morning. Breeze operates on a high utilization basis, so it may not be likely for them to leave an aircraft sitting on the ground for hours during the day when it could be out flying.

There’s certainly potential to add more flights to Westchester with this schedule or continue linking Vero Beach with other cities, such as New York’s Islip (ISP), Pittsburgh (PIT), or Portland, Maine (PWM).

I could certainly be incorrect about all of this, and Breeze is simply lowering utilization and parking an aircraft at Vero Beach, which could be less costly compared to overnighting at primary airports.

Breeze’s Providence to Vero Beach flight operates a traditional out-and-back PVD-VRB-PVD routing, so I won’t go into the details of that schedule.

As of now, Breeze will offer 22 weekly flights to Vero Beach starting in December, with the potential to increase to 26 weekly. This is significant growth from the 4 weekly flights they started with seven months ago.

Other Network Updates

Breeze Airways has extended its bookable schedule from January 9 through April 30, 2024.

Breeze has also revised several routes in this latest schedule update, which includes the aforementioned Vero Beach increase. Breeze will suspend its Orange County (SNA) to Orlando (MCO) route for five months starting October 3, citing a compliance with Orange County Airport’s request to temporarily reduce capacity through the end of this year. The route will return on February 14, 2024 with three weekly flights.

Here are several notable changes I’ve found from Breeze’s schedule extension effective January 10 through April 30, 2024:

• Orlando (MCO) to Orange County (SNA) suspended from October 4 until February 14, 2024

• Raleigh/Durham (RDU) to Los Angeles (LAX) did not extend past early January

• Raleigh/Durham (RDU) to Las Vegas (LAS) did not extend past early January

• New Orleans (MSY) to Orlando (MCO) increase from 2x to 4x weekly from February

• Charleston (CHS) to Tampa (TPA) increase from 7x to 13x weekly during Christmas/New Years, then 10x weekly for the following months

• Norfolk (ORF) to Los Angeles (LAX) returns on February 28

• Raleigh/Durham (RDU) to Islip (ISP) returns on February 1

• Raleigh/Durham (RDU) to Pittsburgh (PIT) returns on February 15

This is all subject to change.