Breeze Airways has dramatically reduced its presence at Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB) this September. Cirium schedule data analyzed by Simple Flying shows the carrier will be operating just 17 departing flights next month, down from 41 in September 2025 — a nearly 60% reduction. The route network has effectively shrunk from five destinations to two during the month, with only Raleigh–Durham International Airport (RDU) and Providence’s Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport (PVD) remaining nonstop.

The eye-catching decline is particularly interesting because Breeze itself is doing precisely the opposite. Across the full network, the same schedule data shows September departures increasing by 44%, spurred on by the airline expecting to receive up to 15 new Airbus A220-300s this year, and continuing to add cities and routes at a rapid pace. Daytona’s problem, therefore, is not that Breeze has stopped growing. Breeze has simply found other places where it can grow faster.

Breeze Went From Five Daytona Routes To Just Two

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Breeze arrived at Daytona in November 2024 with a route from Westchester County Airport (HPN) before adding Hartford’s Bradley International Airport (BDL), Raleigh-Durham and Providence in February 2025. At the time, founder and CEO David Neeleman made the airline’s ambitions for the airport clear, saying Breeze continued to see opportunities on the Atlantic coast of the Sunshine State:

“We have continued to see opportunities for growth on Florida’s eastern coast, and Daytona is very much part of our plans.”

By May last year, Breeze was sufficiently encouraged to announce a fifth route, to Akron-Canton (CAK), with Neeleman reiterating that the carrier was continuing its growth from Daytona. The airport itself said that “the community has embraced Breeze” since services began. That five-route experiment looks very different only a year later, as only RDU and PVD remain. The reduction from 41 departures to 17 is particularly dramatic because Breeze’s routes typically operate only a couple of times each week, meaning removing two or three services can quickly wipe out a large percentage of a small station’s monthly schedule.

Importantly, this is not equivalent to Breeze permanently cutting three Daytona routes, as it would appear that two of the routes are taking a seasonal pause. Akron-Canton’s nonstop service is presently scheduled to resume in November, while Hartford returns twice-weekly from January 7. Westchester is the genuine outlier, as there is no future nonstop Breeze service, making it one of a number of recent routes that have failed the airline’s test.

Nor does this mean Daytona itself has collapsed. DAB handled over 770,000 passengers in 2025, up 11% year-over-year, and its highest total since 1997. Breeze carried around 10% of passengers in the most recent rolling data and its five Daytona routes collectively averaged about a 71% load factor. The tension is therefore more subtle: DAB has been growing, but apparently not enough for Breeze to justify giving the airport the same share of its rapidly expanding fleet.

Breeze Is Building Around Raleigh, Orlando & Tampa

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The clearest explanation emerges when Daytona is compared with Breeze’s largest stations. While DAB loses 24 September departures, Raleigh adds 216, Orlando International Airport (MCO) adds 196, and Tampa International Airport (TPA) adds 228, representing an extraordinary 81% growth rate. Those three airports alone account for 640 additional departures, or a third of Breeze’s entire net schedule increase.

RDU is a striking example of how Breeze has evolved when the market is a great fit. The airline entered the airport in 2023 with just four destinations, but has steadily grown the number of routes, with load factors proving to be particularly strong from North Carolina. By this year, it had announced a Raleigh-Durham crew base with more than 200 local jobs, and said it would serve more than 30 destinations there, making it Breeze’s new busiest airport.

Then there is Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL). Like other airlines, Breeze has plunged into the South Florida market to capitalize on the demise of Spirit Airlines, and has gone from zero departures last year to 223 this year. The airline’s extraordinary expansion across Florida, where it now serves 12 destinations, has meant that its statewide departures have grown by 62% year-over-year, even as Daytona Beach has fallen by a similar amount.

The net result? Breeze is experiencing massive growth across the US and into its new international routes, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Florida. But at the same time, it is concentrating much more of its Florida capacity away from Daytona.

Daytona Is Being Squeezed From Both Sides

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Daytona has always faced one structural problem that Tampa, Orlando and Raleigh do not: a substantial portion of its natural passenger base is willing (or even prefers) to use other airports. A recent GAO review found that 50–60% of passengers in the Daytona catchment area were leaked to nearby Orlando or Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), driven by fares, greater seat availability and more competitive service.

The individual Breeze routes reinforce the picture. According to DOT data covering June 2025 through May 2026, Breeze averaged 71% load factors at DAB. Hartford and Providence appear to have performed reasonably well, while Westchester and particularly Raleigh have filled considerably fewer seats. Breeze can make unusually low-volume routes work, but that does explain why Westchester has disappeared, while the RDU-DAB route likely gets a reprieve as Breeze continues to invest in its biggest station.

Seasonality provides another crucial piece of the explanation. Daytona-area hotel occupancy averages around 40% in September, a notable dip between the busy summer months and the subsequent increase as northern travelers return in winter. That explains why CAK restarts in November and BDL in January. Recent Simple Flying coverage shows Breeze doing exactly the same sort of short-term suspensions elsewhere in Florida during September.

Perhaps the strongest evidence that Breeze’s challenge is not unique comes from JetBlue. The airline returned to Daytona in December 2025 with flights to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) and New York JFK Airport (JFK), only to announce its complete departure effective September 9, 2026. JetBlue said demand had “not developed as anticipated” and that the flights’ financial performance had actually worsened over time.

The net result is a more nuanced story than a simple 60% collapse. Breeze has not abandoned Daytona Beach: Providence and Raleigh remain, Akron returns in November, and Hartford is scheduled to return in January. But the hard reality is that while Daytona hasn’t necessarily become dramatically worse for Breeze, the alternatives have definitely become dramatically better.