How Breeze and Avelo Found Success by Serving Tiny Airports

One cold Thursday afternoon this month, the small airport in New Haven, Conn., was bustling.A line of cars stretched from the terminal, down the main road and into a neighborhood.Inside the airport, a new, second-floor bar was crowded as passengers on the floor below walked through a gate into one of three waiting planes.Five years ago, Tweed-New Haven Airport would have been much quieter.

Back then, it hosted about a half-dozen daily flights, mostly short American Airlines jaunts to and from Philadelphia.This month, about 30 flights a day were connecting the airport to more than two dozen destinations.The revitalization of this airport, which sits close to Long Island Sound, is a consequence of long-running industry changes that created an opportunity for a pair of start-up airlines — Avelo Airlines and Breeze Airways — to fly from airports that the country’s biggest carriers have largely neglected.“What we’re really seeing here is the next generation of industry structure and evolution,” said John Strong, a business professor at the College of William & Mary who focuses on the airline industry,Aviation is unforgiving.

Competition is fierce, the barriers to entry are high and success is fragile.After decades of consolidation, four large airlines control two-thirds of domestic air travel.

Most of their flights take off or land at large airports, which has made their operations efficient and generally profitable.But over time, the big airlines trimmed service at smaller airports....