Breeze Leads Rhode Island Expansion Efforts

BOGOTA—Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport (PVD) has reached a milestone with a record-breaking 36 nonstop destinations, including previously unserved cities like Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Florida, and Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. Additional flights to Dallas-Love Field and Denver are set to launch this summer.

Breeze Airways has emerged as a key player in PVD's expansion, offering service to 18 nonstop routes this year. The airline has designated PVD as an operational base, hosting up to eight aircraft in support of 20 nonstop routes employing 250 pilots, flight attendants and mechanics.

“Breeze has indicated they will not only fly coast-to-coast flights from PVD, but also to Europe when it has the proper preparations in place,” said Alicia Seabury, PVD marketing director, here in Bogotá at Routes Americas 2024.

She explained that a challenge and opportunity for the airport is raising airline awareness of their ability to serve the greater Boston-Providence and southern New England regions through PVD with lower operating costs than competitor airports.

“Our airport’s catchment area extends out 40 mi. reaching 12.5 million passengers annually,” Seabury said. “However, only a fraction of those passengers are able to fly through PVD due to limited flight offerings and instead choose Boston-Logan as a result.”

She added that the airport remains “severely underserved,” saying that PVD has 6.5 million passengers within the 40-mi. catchment area traveling to the 25 most-sought-after destinations, but only 2.3 million of them can do so through PVD due to a lack of capacity.

PVD has ambitions to enhance international connectivity via major European hubs and introduce leisure destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico/Central America regions. Longer-term targets include increasing market share in the Boston-Providence area.