Breeze Airways gets airborne with first flight from Tampa to Charleston

The first Breeze Airways flight took off from Tampa International airport at 10:44 local time on 27 May, marking the launch of a new US airline and another chapter in the start-up-studded career of founder David Neeleman. Most of its 118 seats occupied, including one by Neeleman, the Embraer 195 climbed over Tampa Bay and banked north, headed for Charleston in South Carolina as Breeze flight 1. “It’s a monumental task,” Neeleman says of achieving Federal Aviation Administration certification and getting Breeze airborne. “It was really a difficult [process] getting this… certification.” Neeleman predicts discounter Breeze will generate demand by its very presence on routes that currently have little or no commercial air service. “We will see these markets [be] five to ten, even 20 times what they are today,” he says. Breeze begins operations with the Tampa-Charleston flight and an onward flight (number 2) from Charleston to Hartford, Connecticut. In the coming months it intends to add nine routes from Tampa and several dozen others from cities including Charleston, New Orleans and Norfolk. The airline, which has an operations center in Islip, New York, chose to start in Tampa partly due to surging economic and population growth in Florida. <br/>