A new U.S. airline from serial aviation entrepreneur David Neeleman will require flight attendants to enrol into a full-time online university course and live in shared accommodation provided by the company according to a job ad recently posted by the airline. Breeze Airways is set to launch next year and will be based in Salt Lake City where Neeleman hopes to tap into a market of previously overlooked smaller city pairs that have been ignored by the big players.
Breeze will be Neeleman’s fifth airline startup after launching well-known brands like jetBlue more than 20 years ago, as well as Canada’s WestJet and Brazilian airline Azul. Neeleman, who is originally from Brazil but was brought up as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, has also attempted to turn around Portugal’s loss-making TAP Air.
The COVID-19 pandemic might make it a particularly tough time to launch a brand new airline but Neeleman believes there’s space for another low-cost airline with routes likely to first concentrate out of its Salt Lake City hub. “There are literally hundreds and hundreds of city pairs that are crying out for non-stop flights,” Neeleman said earlier this year, while promising Breeze would be the “world’s nicest airline”.