Right Airline. Right Strategy. | Opinion

Smaller, right-sized aircraft give Breeze flexibility to serve routes sustainably, a key factor in long-term viability.

Yesterday’s announcement is significant: Breeze Airways is launching nonstop service from Tallahassee to Fort Lauderdale and Raleigh-Durham.

That was the headline.

The deeper story is how we got here, and what happens next.

Airlines do not casually enter mid-sized markets. They evaluate aircraft economics, route performance thresholds, and long-term viability. If the math doesn’t work, they move on to other options. That’s the reality of modern aviation.

When JetBlue exited Tallahassee, it exposed a mismatch. Larger aircraft serving thinner markets require consistently high load factors to survive. That model is built for denser corridors.

Breeze operates differently.

With smaller, more efficient aircraft like the Airbus A220 and Embraer E190, Breeze is designed to serve mid-sized and underserved markets. These aircraft, similar to Delta and American Airlines aircrafts that flew to Tallahasse for years, allow them to operate profitably at lower passenger volumes. In plain terms, the plane fits Tallahassee’s demand profile far better than larger narrow-body jets ever could.

And this is where the City deserves credit.

Tallahassee International Airport continues to position itself as a competitive regional gateway through strategic air service expansion.

The Mayor, City Commission, Blueprint, airport administration, and senior staff built a long-term air service incentive framework, roughly $10 million over time structured around minimum revenue guarantees, to reduce risk for airlines entering the market. For Breeze specifically, a two-year revenue guarantee helped secure the deal.

That required votes. Financial modeling. Negotiation. Persistence.

It also required positioning.

Breeze's point-to-point service that fits our market.

In 2025, Tallahassee hosted the TakeOff North America Conference, bringing more than 250 aviation industry leaders here. That wasn’t ceremonial. It put our city directly in front of airline route planners and executives. It signaled that Tallahassee intends to compete.

During the conference, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel alongside Kerri Post of Visit Tallahassee, Artie White with Blueprint, and Ricardo Schneider of Danfoss Turbocor. We discussed Tallahassee’s untapped and underutilized economic potential, not in theory, but in front of executives from targeted airlines, including Southwest, Avelo, Breeze, and Informa. Those conversations were deliberate. They were part of a coordinated effort to present Tallahassee as a serious, data-backed, growth-oriented market.

That event was not a one-off. It was part of a broader, sustained strategy aligning tourism, economic development, major employers, and city leadership around a single message: Tallahassee is ready, and we are willing to compete for growth.

But here’s the final and most important point:

The City can secure the airline. But, the community must keep it.

Airline routes live or die based on volume. The first 6–18 months are proof-of-concept. Load factors matter immediately. If seats don’t fill, aircraft get reassigned. That’s not personal. That’s business.

Which means this cannot just be a press release moment.

Local chambers, business organizations, tourism leaders, universities, and major employers need to wrap their arms around this initiative. Promote it. Educate members. Encourage corporate travel managers to route through Tallahassee instead of driving to Jacksonville or Panama City. Push the message across the entire Tallahassee Metro region.

If we want these routes to stick, we must use them. This is how markets grow air service sustainably.

Yesterday's announcement belongs to Breeze. The credit for landing it belongs to the Mayor, City Commission, Blueprint, and airport professionals who did the hard work behind the scenes.

The responsibility for keeping it belongs to all of us.

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This article is an opinion piece by Bugra Demirel, a longtime Tallahassee resident, entrepreneur, and community advocate. A graduate of Florida State University and Tallahassee State College, Bugra was inducted into the Tallahassee State College Alumni & Friends Hall of Fame in 2024 and honored as a Seminole 100 recipient for leading Demirel International—one of the fastest-growing businesses owned by an FSU alumnus. His company holds investments across retail, hospitality, manufacturing and commercial real estate industries.