Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024 | 2 a.m.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — One cold Thursday afternoon this month, the small airport in New Haven, Connecticut, was bustling.
A line of cars stretched from the terminal, down the main road and into a neighborhood. Inside the airport, a new, second-floor bar was crowded as passengers on the floor below walked through a gate into one of three waiting planes.
Five years ago, Tweed-New Haven Airport would have been much quieter. Back then, it hosted about a half-dozen daily flights, mostly short American Airlines jaunts to and from Philadelphia. This month, about 30 flights a day were connecting the airport to more than two dozen destinations.
The revitalization of this airport, which sits close to Long Island Sound, is a consequence of long-running industry changes that created an opportunity for a pair of startup airlines — Avelo Airlines and Breeze Airways — to fly from airports that the country’s biggest carriers have largely neglected.
“What we’re really seeing here is the next generation of industry structure and evolution,” said John Strong, a business professor at the College of William & Mary who focuses on the airline industry.
Aviation is unforgiving. Competition is fierce, the barriers to entry are high, and success is fragile. After decades of consolidation, four large airlines control two-thirds of domestic air travel. Most of their flights take off or land at large airports, which has made their operations efficient and generally profitable. But over time, the big airlines trimmed service at smaller airports.
That created an opening for Avelo and Breeze. Both started flying in the spring of 2021, with networks and planes suited to underused airports. The airlines mainly fly nonstop between destinations, often providing direct service where none existed before. That differs from the hub-and-spoke model favored by larger airlines, which route flights from smaller airports through big, central hubs in cities like Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas. Avelo and Breeze also fly small- to medium-size planes with plenty of seats, but not so many that the two airlines might regularly struggle to fill them.
“It’s just about the economics,” said Lukas Johnson, the chief commercial officer at Breeze. “You’re kind of Goldilocks. You’re the right size, for the right model, for the right price and efficiency. And that’s really where we’ve carved out a niche.”
The big question is: Can Avelo and Breeze sustain their growth? The history of airlines is littered with bankruptcies and failures. Profits on routes between smaller airports can be modest, and demand can disappear quickly during recessions or when costs of fuel or labor rise and airlines increase ticket prices or adjust service.
Industry experts say that for now, the two airlines, which are privately owned, appear to be doing well. Both have earned loyal followings and have kept costs low and service reliable.
Breeze reported its first monthly profit this year and aims to be profitable for all of 2025. Avelo has reported several quarterly profits, and its CEO, Andrew Levy, said he expected the airline to break even this year — or be close to doing so — with over $300 million in revenue.
“It’s not about what kind of food am I getting or what’s the lounge like,” he said. “What really matters is give me a good deal and just get me there on time. And we excel at that.”
Breeze and Avelo are broadly similar. Both mainly serve people traveling for fun or to visit family and friends. They often fly routes that few or no other airlines operate on. For example, from New Haven, Avelo flies to cities like Knoxville, Tennessee, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, while Breeze offers flights between Erie, Pennsylvania, and Orlando, Florida; Hartford, Connecticut; and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Both companies were also founded by industry veterans — Breeze by David Neeleman, the entrepreneur behind JetBlue Airways, and Avelo by Levy, a former top executive at United Airlines and Allegiant Air.
But the airlines are also different in some ways. Avelo offers cheap fares and few perks. There are no change or cancellation fees, but also no Wi-Fi, power outlets, snacks or drinks for sale. Breeze offers more choice, including options that tap into the growing demand for premium travel after the pandemic, with different seating classes, name-brand snacks and drinks, Wi-Fi, and power outlets. Avelo flies an older generation of the Boeing 737, while Breeze is moving to a fleet entirely made up of the Airbus A220, a smaller jet.
And despite their budding rivalry in New Haven, where Avelo is dominant, the airlines hardly compete head to head. Avelo mainly operates up and down the East and West coasts. Breeze has twice as many flights, including some across the country, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm that tracks flight schedules. Together, the airlines flew about 325 routes this year but competed on only eight.
“They both have a unique product, a different product,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant with the Boyd Group International. Still, he added, “The head offices of those two companies probably aren’t exchanging holiday cards.”
Avelo and Breeze have given hope to some airports and cities that have lost flights in recent years. American Airlines, which did not respond to a request for comment, pulled out of New Haven in late 2021, leaving the airport with no commercial airline until Avelo arrived a few weeks later.
“Almost every day, I have a conversation with some resident who’s excited that they could visit their relatives or go on a weekend trip to Florida,” said Mayor Justin Elicker of New Haven.
The airport and the two airlines support hundreds of local jobs, and the flights have increased tourism and connected New Haven’s thriving life sciences sector, which has strong ties to Yale University, with other cities that have similar hubs, he said.
For Mia Whitfield, the benefits have been personal. She flies Avelo frequently from Nashville, Tennessee, to New Haven to visit her boyfriend, who recently moved to the area. She has taken more than a half-dozen Avelo flights between the cities this year, saving hours on trips from other airlines that require connecting flights and long drives from airports in Hartford or Providence, Rhode Island.
Avelo, which flies from 54 airports, says it has served more than 2.8 million passengers out of New Haven. The airport was home to more than 1 in 5 scheduled Avelo flights this year, according to Cirium data. That’s twice as many as the airline flew from its second-largest hub, Hollywood Burbank Airport near Los Angeles.
Breeze serves 66 airports, including some near New Haven. It connects Hartford to more than two dozen destinations and flies from Providence as well as Long Island and White Plains in New York. The airline will operate only a few dozen flights in New Haven in December but plans to fly a few dozen a week in February.
Analysts say there is room for both companies in the airline industry, though they could be vulnerable if the economy suffers a sharp downturn.
“It depends on how spending changes,” Boyd said. “When discretionary dollars go away, discretionary flying goes away.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.