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In the wee hours of the morning on May 21, 2021, our tiny team huddled around a table and pushed a few buttons to launch Breeze Airways’ first route network, our app, and our website.
Breeze Airways sales launch command center on May 21, 2021
I’m second from right.
We made ourselves several promises on sales launch day about how our airline would do things differently. We definitely didn’t get these ones right.
Everyone deserves great wifi in the sky when their airplane is equipped with it. We know when your flight’s wifi sucks, and we do our damndest to make sure it doesn’t. I pinky swear.
Fewer than 1% of flights have an actively disrupted connection at any point in time, and less than 0.1% of flights above 10,000 feet have connection disruptions. More on why that altitude matters later.
When your flight’s wifi isn’t working, here’s what’s probably going on.
For decades, air travel sales functioned with a simple division of labor: airlines flew planes, travel agents sold most of the tickets, and a handful of intermediaries connected the two sides. This setup worked. However, despite functional relationships between these parties, they were rarely satisfying to airlines.
While carriers struggled with thin margins and often danced with bankruptcy, distribution intermediaries and travel agencies enjoyed healthy profits.
Airline executives watched this disparity with envy as these businesses thrived on the profits of selling the airlines product. Could airlines one day cut them out and keep the money?