Cincinnati is the latest airport to join Breeze's network.
Photo: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Cincinnati has welcomed its next airline: Breeze. On February 8th, Breeze launched service to Charleston and San Francisco. It joins Allegiant to the South Carolina city, while it reconnects Cincinnati to San Francisco after being unserved for almost three years.
Cincinnati welcomes Breeze
With flights on Wednesdays and Sundays, Breeze's two initial Cincinnati routes are scheduled as follows, with all times local. I've detailed how the operating aircraft – an A220-300 – is flowed, beginning and ending the day at its Charleston base.
Charleston to Cincinnati: MX258, 07:30-09:10 (1h 40m block time)
Cincinnati to San Francisco: MX258, 09:50-11:45 (4h 55m)
San Francisco to Cincinnati: MX259, 12:25-19:50 (4h 25m)
Cincinnati to Charleston: MX259, 20:25-21:55 (1h 30m)
Photo: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
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San Francisco is back
While Breeze competes head-to-head with Allegiant to Charleston (also twice-weekly), it is the only carrier to serve San Francisco. However, San Francisco, some 2,036 miles (3,277 km) from Cincinnati, has had non-stop flights from the Ohio city for decades.
It was, of course, mainly a Delta route, thanks to that airline's long-time Cincinnati hub. According to the US Department of Transportation, it even used the 767-300, 767-200, and L-1011 on it in the 1990s (and the 767-300 until 2000). Until 2006, Delta had up to four daily flights, based on Cirium data. As Delta de-hubbed Cincinnati, San Francisco obviously reduced in frequency, with only a daily service offered.
Once had three airlines simultaneously
Frontier launched service from Cincinnati to San Francisco in April 2016, followed by United the following June. The duo competed directly with Delta – the route really did have three airlines – until Frontier pulled out in November 2019. United followed in January 2020 and Delta in March. It is hardly surprising that Breeze senses an opportunity, even if it is just twice weekly – a far cry from the previous three daily held as recently as November 2019.
While hardly surprising, examining booking data for 2022 reveals that San Francisco was Cincinnati's largest unserved domestic market. It had about 80,000 roundtrip point-to-point (P2P) passengers, or passengers daily each way (PDEW) of 109. That is before being stimulated by non-stop service and lower fares. In contrast, according to the DOT, it had 184,000 P2P passengers in 2019. Note that the pandemic impacted passenger figures.
