Breeze firms 10 Airbus A220 orders and will be profitable in 2024: CEO

Start-up carrier Breeze Airways has converted 10 Airbus A220-300 options to firm orders as the three-year old company is anticipated to be profitable for the first time in 2024. In addition, CE David Neeleman said on 20 February that by the end of this year, the Utah-based company will fly all of its scheduled service on the new Airbus type. “We wouldn’t be the airline we are today without Airbus,” Neeleman says. “The A220-300 is a game-changer aircraft. The economics of the aircraft enable us to fly long, thin routes profitably.” Breeze launched operations in May 2021 with a fleet of Embraer E190s and E195s, initially with 60 A220 orders and 60 options. It took delivery of its first A220 in December 2021 and today operates 22 of the type. By the end of 2024, it will have 32 of the Airbus jets in service. In the past two years Breeze upped its order book to 80, and now has added an additional ten, with deliveries scheduled through 2028. The airline also still has 30 options. “With 90 firm orders, Breeze is now one of the world’s top three A220 customers,” Neeleman says. The serial airline entrepreneur - Breeze is the fifth carrier he has launched since the 1980s - says company executives are acutely aware of delivery bottlenecks in the coming years, so that is why Breeze has moved with the orders now. “It’s a great time to exercise the options,” Neeleman says. “You have to exercise options to get in line. That’s a critical factor as we look at the lineup of deliveries.”<br/>