Breeze Airways adding two new seasonal destinations from Long Island MacArthur 

Breeze Airways is adding two new seasonal flights out of Long Island MacArthur Airport starting in the late spring, the airline announced Tuesday.

Breeze will add nonstop flights to Richmond, Virginia, and Pittsburgh from May through Sept. 5. Flights to Richmond will start May 18, and flights to Pittsburgh begin May 25. An Islip spokesperson said the routes will likely return next summer if they are successful.

The low-cost carrier, which began flying out of the Islip Town-owned airport a year ago, added flights to Jacksonville and Tampa, Florida, in December. The Salt Lake City-based airline was launched by JetBlue founder David Neeleman in 2018, with service beginning in 2021.

“We have worked hard at MacArthur Airport to give Long Island travelers more choices and now they can fly on the airport’s nicest airline, Breeze Airways, to two more cities nonstop,” Islip Supervisor Angie Carpenter said in a news release.

New flights are on sale at introductory fares, starting at $39 one way, according to a release.

“Here we grow again,” Breeze Airways president Tom Doxey said in a news release. “We always look for routes that people are traveling today but can’t get there nonstop. Long Island residents can now get to Pittsburgh and Richmond twice as fast, for about half the price.”

Breeze Airways now offers 143 nonstop routes between 35 cities in 21 states, according to the release.

The airline is one of three that flies out of the Islip airport, along with Frontier and Southwest Airlines. American Airlines dropped flights out of MacArthur in September due to pilot shortages.

Carpenter has previously told Newsday that MacArthur saw a 64% increase in passengers during the first six months of 2022 compared with the year before.

Millions of dollars have been poured into renovations at the airport in recent years, including a new $8.4 million ground transportation center that opened in April 2022.

More improvements could be in the airport’s future, as the Town of Islip and Suffolk County weigh the $2.8 billion Midway Crossing project, which, if approved, would add a new terminal to MacArthur and connect it to the Ronkonkoma LIRR station.

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com

Brianne Ledda covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.