Of all the things that happened while I was on vacation, it was Breeze’s decision to roll into New Haven that caused more people to text me than anything else. (Good thing I had DND set on my phone….)
Since Avelo went into the market in 2021 and American walked away from its Philly flight, Avelo has dominated the airport on the central coast of Connecticut. The market has done so well that Avelo now serves more than two dozen destinations from the airport with some days having 15 departures.
The biggest surprise to me is that in the month of August, Avelo is the second largest airline in the entire state of Connecticut. According to Cirium data, it has about 16 percent of departing seats behind American’s 23 percent but ahead of Delta’s 15 percent. Perhaps that success made it inevitable that someone else would go into the market, though there are several theories out there about what exactly made Breeze jump now.
Was it Avelo’s decision to go into Hartford (albeit in non-competitive markets) that stoked the fire? After all, Breeze is going into serious head-to-head overlap here with Orlando, Fort Myers, and West Palm Beach all being huge Avelo markets that Breeze begins in December. (It also starts Vero Beach then, but nobody cares about that.)
Was it Breeze just being opportunitistic? The next tranche of routes are to the usual Breeze strongholds. In Feb, it’ll start Charleston (SC), Jacksonville, Norfolk, Raleigh/Durham, Richmond, and Sarasota. With those routes, it just looks like another spoke in the network.
Or was it something else?
As it turns out, it’s that last possibility that sounds more and more realistic, as we discussed on this week’s episode of The Air Show. It could have been an attempt to get ahead of a certain blue airline that has growing designs on New England.
Come have a listen as Brian, Jon, and I talk about what Chief Commercial Officer Lukas Johnson told Brian as we work through the possibilities.
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Regardless of what motivated Breeze to actually make the move, it’s not a surprise that someone would have done it if they could. After all, the only other commercial airport in Connecticut with service is Hartford/Bradley which sits north of Hartford and away from the coast. There’s a lot of money on the coast, and most of those wallets people have to drive elsewhere. Thanks to New Haven, now they don’t.
But how exactly did Breeze get itself space in that tiny airport? After all, I was under the belief that Avelo swooped in and took all the terminal and ramp space, effectively blocking anyone else from entering until the new terminal got built in the future. I was wrong.
So, I decided to break this down. I took the Sunday before Christmas as a peak day to show aircraft movements at the airport. Then I added in the peak Sunday schedule for Breeze once it’s fully up and running in February. Here’s what it looks like.
HVN Peak Sunday Winter Movements
Purple is Avelo 737-800, turquoise is Avelo 737-700, powder blue is Breeze A220, black is aircraft overnight on ground
I’m well aware you can’t read detail here, but that’s sort of the point. I marked aircraft ground time for Avelo in purple for the 737-800s and turquoise for the 737-700s. Then I put Breeze flight times down below. The black on the sides is time when the airplane is sitting on the ground overnight, so it can probably be parked in a far corner and not cause issues.
Avelo has six airplanes that stay overnight, and it staggers their morning launch by half an hour all morning long. This is a sign that the terminal is just too tiny. If you look throughout the day, there are really only three crunchpoints for Avelo as it is now. There are two airplanes on the ground between 1p and 2p with another window between 4p and 5p and the final between 730p and 830p. Note that in all those cases, there is one 737-800 and one smaller 737-700. At no point is Avelo overlapping two of the bigger airplanes.
Then there’s Breeze which will park only one airplane overnight. The rest will just be airplanes that come in for a quick turn from a base elsewhere. And you’ll notice that Breeze does have an airplane in each of those three crunchpoints. That isn’t ideal.
To be clear, this doesn’t seem to be an issue of aircraft parking space. Take a look at this overhead shot of the ramp at New Haven:
You can see three airplanes parked on the ground in this photo already. There is one more spot with the blue stairs to the bottom left that is currently empty. Then there is another parking spot up top toward the right with white stairs. So there can be five airplanes loading at any given time at this airport.
The only time that might be an issue is late at night or early in the morning. They need to move airplanes out of the gate to make room for others, but that shouldn’t be that much of a problem. The real problem has to be that there’s just not much check-in counter or holdroom space.
Do keep in mind that I’m using an Avelo schedule from December since it doesn’t sell past the holiday period yet, and I’m using a Breeze schedule from later on once it starts all its flights. So maybe there will be more shifting around to smooth out demand, but otherwise, it might be best to steer clear of those times when three airplanes are all fighting each other.
My guess is that this is going to make things even tighter and more difficult for travelers at the airport. Then again, if it means they don’t have to drive to another airport far away, they probably don’t care. That’s what Breeze is betting, and it shouldn’t have to worry about anyone else coming into the airport anytime soon.
