Breeze Airways pulling Tri-Cities flights to Washington Dulles after Nov. 30

BLOUNTVILLE — Breeze Airways commercial passenger service from Tri-Cities Airport to Washington's Dulles International Airport is ending less than a year after it began, but Breeze service to Orlando, Florida is not affected. The Breeze Washington, D.C. service, which kicked off in mid-December of 2025, will end in November of this year, according to the airline's online booking site and the head of the BRIDGE regional economic development group. "The Florida flights are still scheduled," John Rose, executive director of BRIDGE, said Wednesday morning in his Kingsport office. "We've discussed other markets they (Breeze officials) are interested in, growth and profitable markets." Technically, the District of Columbia flight to and from Tri-Cities is a brief stopover point — which is known as a "Breeze Thru" abbreviated stopover — between Breeze service from Dulles to Tri-Cities in Blountville and then on to Orlando International Airport. "That flight did not see the (expected) summer bump" in ridership, Rose said of the reason the Breeze is discontinuing the flight. The Breeze online site as of at least as far back as Monday has indicated the last Washington flight from Tri-Cities available for booking would be Monday, Nov. 30. Rose Wednesday said he has been in contact with Breeze leaders multiple time this week and confirmed the flights would end after Nov. 30. A public relations spokesperson for Breeze could not be reached for comment this week. "Right now it's Nov. 30," Rose said. "We're disappointed. We're looking at additional routes," Rose said. He said he has been in touch with Breeze and other airlines about other flights out of Tri-Cities. BRIDGE, short for Building Regional Investment, Development, Growth and Engagement, provided Breeze about $2 million in funding for minimum revenue guarantees known as MRGs. The MRGs cannot be offered by an airport but can be by a private group like BRIDGE, which relies on contributions from local governments as well as area businesses. BRIDGE is a regional economic development group serving Northeast Tennessee and far Southwest Virginia. It focuses "on providing free market research and data, recruiting new air service and assisting regional tourism organizations, attracting and retaining talent, providing support for communities and private developers in developing commercial, retail and residential projects," according to the BRIDGE website. BRIGHT SIDE On the positive side, aside from the possibility of new flights to and from other destinations, Rose cited the Breeze Orlando flights continuing and the American Airlines flights between Chicago and Tri-Cities continuing after starting in May. He said both obviously have increased competition with additional flights. The data indicates increased passenger numbers, seat capacity and bucking a national ticket price increase trend by a local decrease in average ticket prices. "The national average is up because of fuel," Rose said of escalating plane fuel prices. U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics comparing the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025 indicated average passenger ticket costs decreased $53 per ticket, making a 8.7% decrease in ticket prices while the national average was an increase of 10.2% in ticket prices. Airport President and CEO Gene Cossey said available seats at Tri-Cities Airport grew from 582,370 seats available in the market in 2024-25 to 632,388 in 2025-26. "So, yes, that is a significant growth in seats available," he said via email. As for average fares, he said data he can access indicates average fares in the first quarter of 2023-24 were a baseline of $261.74, In 2024-25 the baseline was $267.59 or plus 2% compared to the prior year and for the first quarter of 2025-26 $231.73 or 11.5 % over 2023-24. "These numbers are different than the BTS statistics. The BTS statistics take a sampling of ticket data and are round trip tickets," Cossey said via email. "My data is real data and one-way fares. The point is, yes, between 24/25 and 26 average fares have dropped a good amount at TRI. This is difficult to compare accurately over the national average as that number is an aggregate of all airports, and comparisons are not great." In addition, flyers out of Tri-Cities still can reach in Washington by either taking a Delta flight to Atlanta and then a flight to Washington D.C. or taking an American flight from Tri-Cities and then a flight to Washington. "With the competition in place, airlines have to make business decisions," Rose said. "It's (the MRG program) still being a success." He pointed out a consultant estimated before new routes began that ticket prices on average from Tri-Cities would go down 7-9%, compared to the actual results of 8.7%. "We appreciate the partners who took the risk to grow air service in the region," Rose said. He said Carter County in February came on board the growing number of governments and other entiries supporting BRIDGE efforts to improve Tri-Cities passenger service and other regional efforts. In addition to the launch of Breeze service to Florida and Washington, American Airlines service to Chicago launched in late May of this year. United Airlines had announced plans to launch Chicago service later this year but recently said that had been postponed until October of 2027 because of Federal Aviation Administration restrictions on the number of runway slots in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Kingsport Times News reporter Allison Winters assisted with this article.