Jun. 15—Breeze Airways, the budget carrier started by JetBlue founder David Neeleman last year, said Tuesday it was suspending two of its flights out of New Orleans for the next several months because of crew shortages.
The airline said it would suspend its once-a-week Saturday flights from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to West Palm Beach (Florida) International from July 2. It plans to restart the route on October 6.
Breeze has cut its Saturday flights to and from Jacksonville, Florida until late September, though the Thursday and Sunday flights on the route will remain in operation.
"Breeze has had to make some temporary schedule adjustments for flights in the coming months due to constraints of crew availability," Breeze spokesman Gareth Edmonson-Jones said. "In most cases, this means trimming one or two weekly frequencies."
Soaring fuel prices is another issue
Edmonson-Jones said the cuts are not related to the soaring cost of jet fuel, which is up more than 125% over the past year. The cost of airfare has risen by more than 50% over the past year, the highest yearly rise since 1980, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Breeze, whose strategy is to fly routes that didn't previously exist and link smaller cities to destination cities like New Orleans and Las Vegas, has been highly reactive to market conditions over the last year, both trimming and adding new flights and routes in reaction to demand.
In March, even as fuel prices were soaring, the carrier doubled its number of domestic routes to 77.
Still, the airline has been quick to cut flights when traffic doesn't pan out as expected.
Giveth flights and taketh away
In January, for example, it cut direct flights from New Orleans to two Ohio airports, Akron- Canton and Columbus, after a few months in operation. They went from year-round to running only between February and April, and from October through the New Year.
The frequency of flights to Louisville (Kentucky) Muhammad Ali International Airport also dropped from four times a week to twice weekly. Flights to Huntsville, Alabama and to Tulsa and Oklahoma City were dropped altogether.
Edmonson-Jones said that anyone who was booked on flights that have now been canceled will get a full refund.
Flight schedules were severely disrupted over the last two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic but cancellations have become much less frequent in recent months, said Erin Burns, a spokesperson for the airport.
"Although it is much less common now that we're emerging from the pandemic, it still happens in some cases," Burns said.
A slow return to international routes
On Monday, the airport said that flights to Montreal and Paris would commence later this year, adding to resumed routes to London and Toronto. Still, traffic on international routes to New Orleans remains low and flights including Copa Airlines to Panama and Condor's to Frankfurt have yet to resume.
Meanwhile, the airline industry's shortage of pilots and other essential crew is unprecedented and has led to calls for an easing of age restrictions to allow some pilots to return to work in order to ease the situation.
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