It was November 2021 when Avelo struck gold. The airline went into the recently-abandoned New Haven Tweed airport along the southern Connecticut coast, and it instantly found strong demand. It has grown to having almost 20 daily departures on peak days, a remarkable feat considering how constrained the airport is. But now, the airport seems to have hit a wall. Breeze just entered New Haven, and, well, things are not going well.
New Haven was a sleepy little airport with limited service on American — previously US Airways — to the Philadelphia hub for many years. It wasn’t lighting the world on fire or getting even close to it, but Avelo’s initial business plan saw something different. It found a real opportunity to create a New York reliever that would serve all those wealthy bedroom communities in Westchester and Connecticut for their leisure travels. why drive to a mess of a congested airport in New York City if you didn’t have to? American left quickly, but Avelo found quick success with Florida flights. Then it kept growing, and growing, and growing.
This was all pretty remarkable considering how constrained the airport’s facilities are. At last check, there were a couple of cardboard boxes doing double duty as a terminal facility with just a handful of parking spaces available for Avelo. There is a plan to build a new terminal and extend the runway, but until that is done, it was just assumed that Avelo would be the only game in town.
Avelo built up to just shy of 20 departures on peak days over spring break, and while the terminal building was packed, the operation was running ok. Then, Breeze decided to make its move.
Breeze started with only 2 to 3 flights per day, but adding a second airline requires a significant operational change on the terminal side. Sure, you can no longer coordinate all your flights, but in the terminal you need multiple ticket counters, baggage processes, etc. It’s easy for Avelo to know its capabilities when nobody else is flying there, but now with another airline? It’s a different story.
Now let’s play a little game. I’m going to let you guess when Breeze started flying based on the below chart:
New Haven (HVN) Operational Data by Day
Data via Anuvu
How did you know it was in December? This is shocking. Breeze actually started on December 10, and that coincides with the operation tanking at the airport. The green line shows arrivals within 14 minutes for flights departing New Haven. The blue columns show the average taxi-out time.
It looks like things have rebounded a little since those early days, but that doesn’t matter. We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. Both Breeze and Avelo have plans to add more flights in this race to gridlock.
New Haven (HVN) Monthly Departures by Airline
Data via Cirium
Not only will Breeze double its flights to as many as 6 daily in February, but Avelo is growing and defending its turf as well. So far, there has never been more than 20 daily departures at the airport, but starting in February there will be 25 to 26 daily.
It seems like something will have to give here, but so far nobody is budging. Presumably, a little experience and maybe some flight schedule tweaks can gain some reliability back for the two carriers, but at least in the near term, you can expect pain.
In other words, if you’re flying out of New Haven, get there early and hope for the best.
29 comments on “Breeze’s Entry Into New Haven Has Been a Bumpy One”
Not sure about the best way to analyze/show this, but I’d be curious as to what extent the added flights at HVN in the past 3 years have siphoned demand away from HPN (and to a MUCH lesser extent, possibly BDL as well), or put pricing pressure on those airports.
I’m also curious (and I bet Avelo’s marketing team knows this very well) how many pax flying out of HVN live to the north and/or east of HVN (as opposed to west of HVN), as HVN is a shorter/similar drive for much of CT than PVD or BDL are.
Credit to Avelo for finding this opportunity at HVN and making it work.
True to the northeast, but to the southwest it gets dicey the further you travel. I-95 between Bridgeport, Norwalk, Stamford, Greenwich & into Westchester County becomes unpredictable even at off peak times. I can’t tell you how many times in recent years I’ve been stuck in traffic while riding the bus as a result just from the spillover effect alone.
This is a coincidence… But I flew out of HVN last night. Decided to try out Avelo. Flew them to Myrtle Beach.
At least on a random Monday night at 6 o’clock, it was just fine. There was only one flight leaving at the time, and they only had nine or 10 yesterday total. The flight was only a third full and TSA was empty.
I didn’t even see anything from Breeze actually. I didn’t go to the counter, so I have no idea how they’re set up is… But I saw no planes, no presence at all when I was through there.
Avelo does warn you to get there three hours early.
I think for someone traveling through the airport as a visitor, it’s just fine. The rental car situation was easy and I don’t check bags usually so that was easy. But if you’re a local and have to fight with trying to find a place to park, and checking a bag? It’s not as easy as it could be.
Quicker side on Avelo. Even spirit thinks these guys are cheap cheap cheap. I mean, think Kmart airlines. They didn’t even have an influx service at all… Not water… Not drinks to buy… Not anything. And no, it wasn’t because of turbulence. It was a two hour smooth flight. The flight attendants just sat in their seats.
Is that “influx” service what “ all those wealthy bedroom communities in Westchester and Connecticut” want “for their leisure travels” ?
Too much “influx” could lead to reflux…
I don’t see any catering operators at HVN that could provision “influx” service.
you flew out of there post holiday when not too many people fly out. its mess and going to be worse come feb into spring break
If you live in the majority of Westchester County or the towns west of Bridgeport, the odds of you schlepping out to HVN is slim if HPN is an option. Have a friend Who lives in Westbrook & when her parents drive up from White Plains it regularly takes an hour plus do to I-95 congestion. If they were driving to HVN, it would still be close to an hour-long drive& yet HPN is 15-minutes away from them.
Another person in the same complex where my friend lives her family lives in Orange & HVN would be perfect for them.
JetBlue rules at HPN with most of its flights going to Florida. Too much JetBlue and not enough of anything else.
The next biggest airline at HPN is Breeze. It’s just about all Florida.
I drive up from Fairfield County to New Haven to fly to IAD and BWI. No flights to Baltimore from HPN.
Fascinating, probably not helped by Breeze’s poor operational reliability. With JetBlue going into Long Island and Manchester, I wonder if they try New Haven too. Hopefully their operational reliability will have improved by then.
Not until the new terminal is constructed. Does HVN have more than four jet bridge gates? I Ask as that’s how many HPN has.
They have three gates. None of them have jet bridges as far as I could tell.
Avelo does load from both front and rear from the tarmac.
Theres technically 4 gates to board from the ground. Theres one jet bridge at HVN. avelo never uses is while breeze uses it on some flights.
Maybe HVN needs controlled slots like the other airports in the New York area.
Not really, but how else is peak capacity handled at other airports? Surely this sort of thing has happened before although not at an airport quite as small.
Did you factor in the poor winter weather in your analysis? How does A14 and taxi time correlate to close-by airports? Did those airports experience similar issues in December?
Discussions about under-utilized airports, and the opportunities that they produce always interest me.
In the western suburbs of Chicago, just 16 miles to the west of O’Hare lies the beautiful DuPage County Airport (KDPA). The land area is larger than KMDW (not hard!) and it has 4 runways, the longest of which is 7,500′. Presently no landing fees, but there is a ramp fee which can be waived if you buy their grossly overpriced fuel! They even have a US Customs office on site. How long before someone starts service there? Yes, it will need some work to bring it up to 14 CFR part 139 standards, such as upgrading the fire and rescue service, and having TSA checkpoints added to a beautiful terminal built to satisfy the needs of corporate travelers. But, it is well placed in an economically wealthy area. Lots of room to expand around the airport too. However, I understand that the airport administration has no interest in bringing in commercial carriers. Surely an opportunity for a progressive ULCC?
Right now, MX never has more than 2x on any given day, and one of those is a RON, so should be manageable.
Beginning Feb 13, there is a stress point at about 2 pm, when 4 planes are on the ground at the same time (although if times were perfect, one would be taxiing in while another is taxiing out).
Interestingly, in Jun when daily departures are up to 28x, the schedule looks better with again no more than 3 planes on the ground at any given time– although could be havoc during IROPS.
Does HVN avoid the mess of NY TRACON? I think HPN is managed by NY, but it looks like HVN is with Boston? Wonder how that impacts IROP days (i.e. HVN can escape some of that mess)
It was much nicer flying into and out of HVN on Pilgrim’s Twin Otters, back in ‘the old days’!
The issue there is they have three places for planes to park. That’s it.
If there is any delay, incoming flights have to just sit on the tarmac until there is a place. I’m sure that’s where the taxi time is coming from, because there is zero taxi time when no one is waiting.
HVN terminal and ramp is definitely constrained, but to clarify they now have 4 places for planes to park for departures and arrivals. They use several other spots for up to 8 jets that RON overnight including 2 that sit nose-to-nose on a de-comissioned runway.
Looking at Google maps, there are 5 parking positions painted on the ramp–3 at the terminal, and 2 remote spots just NE of the terminal.
HVN had certainly squeezed all the space it can out of what it has– using the old cross runway for its overflow parking!
I flew out of HVN for holiday travel, and it was packed to the gills. Wall to wall people, and you could hardly move. Forget grabbing a snack or drink at the tiny coffee shop. It was about 16 deg when I flew out, and having to walk out to the plane with no jet bridge was … uncomfortable at the least. The lack of inflight service meant I had to plan ahead and bring food/water with me, but it wasn’t a long flight and not a big deal. I could see it being an issue on a longer flight.
The bottom line was the airport facilities were too small for the number of people they had packed in, but it was cheap and a direct flight (compared to at least one stop from BDL or HPN), so I would fly out of HVN again. They definitely need more space, though, especially with Breeze coming online.
I don’t see how this airport can handle this many people until it is expanded. It’s not much bigger than a double wide.
I’m curious how long the people who live near Tweed get sick of having the extra flights over their neighborhood and do something about it?
Breeze business plan has moved to just reacting to or following avelo. I dont think theyre going to last long at all.
Interesting article in the Hartford Courant today about Avelo’s new Bradley fights tanking.
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Rapidly expanding low-cost airline scraps three routes at CT airport. Here’s why.
https://www.courant.com/2025/01/14/rapidly-expanding-low-cost-airline-scraps-three-routes-at-ct-airport-heres-why/
I can’t imagine any measurable number of people are going to do this, but Breeze is also offering connecting itineraries through HVN. I was looking up CHS-PIT the other day and the cheapest option was Breeze via HVN (had to be the same aircraft because it was a 40 minute connection).
As a southerner with family in CT who flew CHS-PIT/PHL-HVN several times on Usair back in the 90s, I was highly amused by HVN now being the connecting city to PIT. Really a microcosm of the changes in the industry over the past generation.
Ooops – sorry – in case anyone is fact checking that. CHS-RDU was the itinerary that offered a Breeze connection via HVN. Looks like they’re not serving PIT from HVN yet. BDL was offered as the connection from CHS-PIT. Still, the ghost of USairways Past is ever-present.
I live in New Haven. To arrive 3 hours ahead for an avelo flight?? 30 min sounds about right given how tiny the airport is.