Breeze, Avelo see sharp enplanement growth at JIA as other airlines see decline (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — A duo of up-and-coming, low-cost airlines are surging in growth at Jacksonville International Airport, while some longer-standing carriers have seen a dip in passengers between the last two fiscal years to date.
Breeze Airways and Avelo Airlines have seen the sharpest growth in passengers out of JIA in the current fiscal year to date compared to the same period in FY 2024-2025.
Meanwhile, the mix of airlines that have experienced a dip in passengers includes major carriers such as American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, along with lower-cost airlines such as Sun Country Airlines, Frontier Airlines and JetBlue.
Though the trend illustrates the recent success of Breeze’s and Avelo’s bullish expansions in Jacksonville and fuel-related challenges experienced by other airlines, it’s difficult to nail down a solid outlook on any particular airline in Jacksonville solely from enplanement numbers, said JAA CEO Mark VanLoh.
“It’s hard to keep an eye on enplanements every month because it changes dramatically with this fuel crisis happening,” he said. A lot of our major carriers — American, United, Delta, Southwest — cut back on some unprofitable cities for a while until jet fuel gets cheaper, and then they’ll bring those back.
“Whereas the startup carriers, like Avelo, Allegiant and Breeze are all seeing, they’re all picking the cities that would make the most sense financially, and they’re coming in and taking the profitable routes. So it’s a mix, and it changes every month.”
So far in FY 2025-2026, Breeze has seen a 60.9% increase in enplanements, tallying 74,601 enplanements as of May compared to 46,365 in the same period of FY 2024-2025, according to data the JAA presented Wednesday at a board meeting.
The airline has a diversified set of destinations out of Jacksonville, as far as Los Angeles and soon as close as Fort Lauderdale.
Avelo, which extended its Jacksonville flight schedule earlier this year, saw enplanements grow to 8,191 in FY 2025-2026 from 2,191 in the same period of FY 2024-2025, charting 273.8% growth.
Close behind the two rapidly growing airlines was Allegiant, which tallied 74,860 enplanements to date from 59,475 enplanements in the same period last year. Avelo and Allegiant are non-signatory airlines.
On the other side of things, American Airlines saw 591,459 enplanements in the current fiscal year to date, sliding down from 624,205 flights.
JetBlue and Southwest saw slight declines in enplanements. JetBlue decreased to 111,061 this fiscal year to date from 126,273 in the same period of FY 2024-2025.
Southwest saw a slight decrease from 324,195 enplanements to 314,047.
For most of the airlines decreasing enplanements at JIA, VanLoh attributed much of the recent downward trend to the spike in jet fuel costs related to the Iran War.
“… JetBlue, they may have four flights a day to Fort Lauderdale, fuel goes to, $7, $8 a gallon, they take that to three flights a day just to squeeze out all the profits they can, and that’s pretty standard business for the airlines, they’ll reduce flights,” VanLoh said. “They’ll bring them back when the fuel goes back down.”