Breeze Airways Suspends Westchester to Los Angeles, Increases Florida Capacity
Westchester County Airport (HPN) in New York is losing its remaining transcontinental route as Breeze Airways modifies its network.
After April 30, Breeze Airways will suspend its Westchester (HPN) to Los Angeles (LAX) route, citing issues related to Westchester Airport’s capacity limits and potential delays from the length of the flight and crew duty times, according to a spokesperson for the airline:
”We just made the difficult decision this week to suspend service between HPN and LAX, starting May 1. HPN is capacity controlled and has limited slot times. With the early morning slots we have, the route required 7 crews to operate it. Then, given the length of the flight, any delays were further impacted by crew duty times. Breeze keeps fares low through efficiency and by using our planes productively. Given that, we've decided to utilize that plane on other routes in the network.”
Westchester Airport has a limit on the number of flights and passengers traveling through the airport each hour. Breeze recently converted its LAX-HPN route to a red-eye, meaning it would depart LAX at night and arrive at HPN early in the morning. The crew and Airbus A220 operating this route will be allocated elsewhere in Breeze’s network.
Impacted customers will be offered a full refund or the option to be rebooked on the one-stop BreezeThru service between LAX and Hartford (BDL).
Breeze Airways announced flights to Westchester less than a year ago in April 2022. The announcement included the airport’s first-ever transcontinental flights to San Francisco (SFO), Las Vegas (LAS), and Los Angeles (LAX). The airline dropped San Francisco before it began, flew the Las Vegas route for a month, and will now suspend the Los Angeles service, leaving Westchester without transcontinental service.
Breeze Adds More Florida Capacity, Begins Overnighting in Non-Bases
As of now, Breeze Airways operates its passenger network so aircraft will only remain overnight in one of its current seven bases—Tampa, Charleston, New Orleans, Norfolk, Hartford, Provo, and Providence.
However, Breeze will soon begin overnighting aircraft in Orlando (MCO) and temporarily in Jacksonville (JAX). Unlike its seven existing bases, MCO and JAX will not be crew bases for the airline at this time.
In the coming months, Breeze will increase capacity in Florida markets through frequency and guage. Some examples based on Breeze’s current available schedule:
Orlando (MCO) to Tulsa (TUL), Bentonville (XNA), Huntsville (HSV), Charleston, SC (CHS), Charleston, WV (CRW) gradually upgrade from the Embraer E-Jets to Airbus A220s through the summer and into Fall 2023
Orlando (MCO) to Akron/Canton (CAK) upgrades from E-Jet to A220 in September, increases from 4x to 7x weekly starting October
Vero Beach (VRB) to Hartford (BDL) increases from 2x to 7x weekly from September
Vero Beach (VRB) to Westchester (HPN) increases from 5x to 7x weekly, upgrades from E-Jet to A220 from September
Fort Myers (RSW) to Providence (PVD) increases from 3x to 7x weekly in November
Fort Myers (RSW) to Hartford (BDL) increases from 2x to 5x weekly in November
Separately, Breeze will also launch a new route from Pittsburgh (PIT) to Los Angeles (LAX) starting September 8 with a twice-weekly Airbus A220.