VERO BEACH – Vero Beach Mayor John Cotugno officially welcomed Breeze Airways to the city Friday afternoon at a brief ceremony just before the new airline’s first flight landed from Westchester County, just north of New York City.
“We want to welcome you to the tropics,” Cotugno said, drawing laughs from the crowd of about 50 dignitaries and guests because the weather had suddenly turned cold and blustery and at the last moment the ceremony had to be moved from a planned outdoor location to inside the airport terminal.
The spirit was festive anyway, and after the plane landed, a few minutes ahead of schedule, a bottle of champagne was broken against the hull of the colorful blue Brazilian-made Embraer jet to officially signify the start of regular passenger air service from the Vero Beach Regional airport to the Northeast. The plane arrived with a full load of 123 passengers from Westchester, and the return plane to Westchester was also sold out.
On Thursday evening, a Breeze Airbus jet had arrived from Hartford, CT, to start the airline’s service here, but Friday was celebrated as the start of service to New York.
Several Indian River County Commissioners as well as Vero Beach City Council members and Indian River County Chamber of Commerce officials were in attendance at the Friday ceremony.
On behalf of Breeze, the airline’s director of airports and facilities, Brian McCormick, who is based in Florida, presented Cotugno with a mounted Breeze jet model and thanked all local officials who had made it possible to bring regular passenger airline service back to Vero Beach.
McCormick promised that based on initial excellent response from the market to the new Vero Beach routes, the airline soon plans to add more flights to and from the city.
He said he knows what a hassle it has been up to now for Vero Beach residents to fly anywhere, always having to fight traffic on Interstate-95 whether they were flying out of Orlando or one of the South Florida airports.
“When we add more flights, you’ll be able to say goodbye to I-95,” McCormick said to enthusiastic applause.
Breeze Airways’ corporate headquarters are in Salt Lake City, but the airline has created a niche for itself in less than two years flying into and out of secondary airports, like Provo, not Salt Lake City, in Utah, and White Plains in New York’s Westchester County instead of the bigger airports at Newark, JFK and LaGuardia.
McCormick reiterated that Breeze, which brands itself as the “nice” airline, is about “nice people flying nice routes and he also promised all passengers a “nice experience at altitude” in the air.
Photos by Joshua Kodis
