Breeze Airways might be America's weirdest airline, and its new routes from Raleigh-Durham show exactly why. Breeze has added 15 routes from RDU this year and next, to places as random as Bangor in Maine, Vero Beach in Florida and Provo in Utah. Raleigh-Durham is now the airline's most-served airport for 2026, according to flight schedule data. That's a little odd for an airline based in Utah, but odd is kind of Breeze's whole thing.
Why Breeze Is So Weird
Breeze was started in 2021 by David Neeleman, the same person who founded JetBlue. Instead of fighting the big airlines on busy routes like New York to Florida, Breeze goes where nobody else flies nonstop. About 90% of its routes have no nonstop competition at all. If you've ever wished there were a direct flight from your small hometown airport to the beach, Breeze is probably the airline that thought of it.
The trade-off is that many of those flights only run a couple of times a week, so you plan your trip around the plane instead of the other way around. Its fares come in three tiers called Nice, Nicer and Nicest. There are no change fees, and it sells actual first class seats on what's otherwise a budget airline. It flies only the Airbus A220, a newer mid-size plane with just two seats on one side of the aisle and three on the other, so fewer people get stuck in a middle seat.
The strange part is that it seems to be working. Breeze now flies to 91 cities and has taken delivery of 55 of the 90 planes it ordered. It also reportedly turned its first full-year profit in 2025, which is more than a lot of newer US airlines can say.
The New Raleigh-Durham Routes
Twelve of the new routes started this year. Punta Cana came first in March, followed in May by Bangor, Vero Beach, Stewart Airport in New York's Hudson Valley, San Antonio, Madison and Orange County in California. Atlantic City, Tallahassee and Birmingham followed in the summer, then Provo in October and Dayton just last week.
Three more are coming in 2027. Buffalo starts June 29 with four flights a week, and Nassau in the Bahamas starts June 30 with two. Las Vegas is coming back too. Breeze flew it from Raleigh-Durham for a few months in 2023 and 2024, and it's returning as a daily flight, which is rare for Breeze. Most of the other new routes run just twice a week.
What It Means If You Fly From Raleigh
For people in the Research Triangle, this is mostly good news. Breeze is often the only airline flying nonstop to these cities from RDU, so you can skip a connection in Charlotte or Atlanta to get to places like Bangor or Vero Beach. That kind of route is exactly what bigger airlines tend to ignore, as you can see in how much airlines actually compete on America's busiest routes.
Just know the catch before you book. When a route only runs twice a week, a canceled flight can mean waiting days for the next one instead of hours. No change fees help, but it's worth knowing what an airline owes you if your flight gets canceled and leaving yourself a little slack on the return trip.
