There’s a major update to how you can book your Breeze Airways tickets, as the airline is expanding the online booking platforms that it partners with.
Breeze now partners with two online travel agencies
Breeze Airways launched operations over three years ago. Prior to this spring, the only way to book flights with the airline was directly through the carrier’s website or app. Then as of March 2024, the airline launched its first partnership with an online travel agency (OTA), as Priceline became the company’s first OTA partner.
There’s now an additional update. As of August 2024, Breeze has added Expedia as its second OTA partner, meaning you can now book Breeze tickets through both Priceline and Expedia.
Both of these agencies have established a direct API connection to Breeze, providing direct access to Breeze’s inventory. In addition to airfares, customers will soon be able to purchase fare bundles and ancillaries directly through these OTAs as well.
Here’s how Lukas Johnson, Breeze’s Chief Commercial Officer, described the partnership with Priceline at the time:
“We’re excited to work with Priceline, our first-ever OTA partner, to bring Breeze flights to a broader audience. Now Priceline’s many users have another way to book their next getaway on Breeze.”
And here’s what he has to say about the new Expedia partnership:
“We’re thrilled to partner with Expedia Group to find a broader audience for our unique route network, connecting underserved city pairings with nonstop flights. And now Expedia Group’s travelers have another airline to book their next getaway.”
This Breeze development seems long overdue
Airlines of course want you to book directly through their website or mobile app whenever possible. This minimizes distribution costs, provides the most opportunities to sell customers ancillaries, and even offers the best odds of enrolling customers in the frequent flyer program, which can increase the lifetime value of a customer.
The challenge is, OTAs are often a necessary evil for airlines, in order to fill planes. After all, airlines need to be able to appear on sites comparing fares in order to fill planes, even if there’s a cost to it. That’s how a lot of customers shop.
In the case of Breeze Airways, it seems like the airline needs OTAs more than virtually any other airline, so I’m happy to see this development. Breeze doesn’t have much name recognition, and the airline operates a lot of point-to-point routes that the public doesn’t even know exist, yet up until recently, the only way to book was directly with the airline.
Breeze has had a rough start, and it has taken the airline more time to built up its operations than initially planned. The company isn’t publicly traded, so we have limited insights into financials. Based on everything we know (basic financial documents filed with the Department of Transportation), Breeze was losing a massive amount of money for the first couple of years. While the carrier’s performance is improving, it’s not an easy industry.
Breeze management insists that the airline will be profitable in 2024. Whether or not that ends up being the case remains to be seen…
Bottom line
Breeze Airways is now partnering with both Expedia and Priceline, whereby Breeze flights can be booked through both online travel agencies. For roughly the first three years of launch, Breeze hasn’t partnered with any OTA, so this is a pretty significant development.
What do you make of Breeze partnering with both Expedia and Priceline?
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