Transcript
Indiana University Announcer (0:00)
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David Neeleman (0:18)
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio.
Interviewer (0:22)
News A major milestone reached by Breeze Airways. The low cost carrier has become the first year US Airline in over a decade to be certified by the FAA as a US Flag carrier. That designation allows Breeze to make international flights, unlocking new growth for the four year old company. Joining us now is David Neeleman, a name that you surely know and are familiar with because he was the CEO and the founder of JetBlue. David, great to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining. Open interest what, what is your plan for expansion of this airline now that you've gotten this incredibly rare allowance?
David Neeleman (1:04)
Well, we're up to over 50 airplanes. We're kind of growing every, we get an airplane about every three weeks. We have on firm order about 90 Airbus A2 20s with an option to go to 120. So it's just doing the same thing that we're doing. We're flying mo about 87% of our routes. We have no nonstop competition. So it's a perfect airplane size. We have first class with extra legroom seats. And this international expansion is going to be great for us because Saturdays are a little bit of a down day for, for air travel, but being able to take those airplanes and fly to Cancun and to put the Cana and to Montego Bay, Jamaica is going to be a real great asset for us.
Interviewer (1:48)
Well, David, for anyone who's not familiar with your resume, every airline you founded has done something to be disruptive to reshape its home market. Morris with e ticketing, JetBlue with more comfort for reasonable prices, making secondary cities in Brazil connecting them for Breeze Airways. What is the disruption here that you're trying to bring into the market?
David Neeleman (2:13)
Well, you know, it's along the same lines of what we've done. I, I always say never start an airline just for the heck of it. You have to start it with, with a reason. And when I looked at the US market, 125 cities had lost more than 25% of their air service over the last 10 years. So the big airlines were forcing people to all their hubs and cities like Charleston, South Carolina, Huntsville, Alabama, vibrant, growing cities. You basically had to get on a plane, fly to a hub. And so we're just taking people and bypassing hubs and going nonstop, but doing it with Lux we're not really like a usa we offer first class, we offer extra legroom seats. We, we offer really low fares. We have a kind of a basic economy equivalent, but then we have these bundles that people love to, to buy up and you know, we've got the highest NPs score I've ever seen of any airline I've ever run. So we are voted by Travel Leisure as the third best airline in the country. Apex number one airline. So it's, it's working. This is combination of getting you there for always. When we started, I said let's get you there twice as fast for half the price. That's kind of our goal. And do it with options to fly first class or extra legroom or have free wi fi and a lot of things you don't see on a US.