Breeze A220 ASCENT FIRST CLASS | Springfield to Tampa

Intro Florida is by far the most popular leisure  destination from Illinois. Putting Chicago aside,   six airports throughout the State of Illinois  combine for 25 nonstop routes across nine   Floridian airports. Now you’ve definitely heard  of Breeze Airways and a big chunk of its operation   is based out of Florida serving multiple cities  across the East Coast and Midwest. Given how much   Illinoisians love Florida, it was only a matter  of time before Breeze took notice. Sure enough,   in December 2023, the airline inaugurated service  to its first Illinois city, none other than the   state capital of Springfield. So today, we’re  flying Breeze’s Airbus A220-300 from Springfield   down to Tampa on the second-to-last flight of the  season and we’re doing so in Breeze Ascent, the   carrier’s version of a First Class offering. This  is a video I’ve been wanting to make for quite   some time now so I’m excited to finally bring it  to you all and I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy it.  SPI Airport A beautiful good morning from  Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport,   the perfect name for an airport serving the  Illinois state capital which for 24 years was   also the home of former President Abraham Lincoln.  I’ve been to Springfield many times but this is my   first time flying from here which feels great  as a major goal of mine this year has been to   fly from every Central Illinois airport with  airline service. With Springfield crossed off,   the only airport left is Decatur which I hope  to check off later this year. Capital Airport’s   landside area is a decent size though I didn’t get  to see all of it this morning. This is the rather   small check-in area which has a small lounge  where I’m sitting and then TSA off to the side.   Springfield was the first Illinois destination  for Breeze Airways, who now fly twice a week to   both Orlando and Tampa with Tampa service being  seasonal. As mentioned earlier, there is a lot   of demand for travel between Downstate Illinois  and Florida so it’s highly likely that we will   see Breeze expand to nearby airports. Now here’s a  fun fact, of the ten primary airports in Illinois,   all but two have nonstop flights to Florida,  those being Champaign-Urbana and Marion.   Champaign is a much larger market than Marion  so it’s a perfect choice to become Breeze’s   next destination in Illinois and no, I’m not  just saying that because it’s my hometown.  After breezing through TSA, here we are in  the airside portion of Capital Airport. Now   I don’t know what it is but this is definitely  one of the more bizarre-looking terminals that   I’ve seen. There’s plenty of seating but no  shops or restaurants, just a couple of vending   machines and a water fountain. Capital Airport  has four gates but these days, only gates 1 and   4 are used. Gates 2 and 3 were used for ground  boarding and I assume these haven’t been used   in at least 15 years. Springfield used to see  a lot of turboprop aircraft back in the day,   the most recent being Saab 340s from ATA  Connection and Jetstream 41s from American   Connection. And that brings me to the next point  of discussion which is the unfortunate history of   SPI's Unfortunate Past airline service in Springfield. This airport  has seen so many routes come and go over the   years and here are some of the more recent ones  that Springfield has lost in recent history. Both   Washington Dulles and Las Vegas ended many years  ago but Allegiant cut Orlando Sanford in 2018   and Phoenix Mesa in 2022. Last year, American  Eagle ended its route from Dallas while United   Express left completely. Today, Springfield sees  the following services and this limited number   especially from major airlines like American has  been a point of concern for federal lawmakers,   three of which who have written a letter to  American Airlines asking for improved service   at the airport. And I also just wanted to point  something out. You might recall that I showed   this table a few minutes earlier. Well, here  Wikipedia claims that Springfield Airport served   just shy of 777,000 passengers in 2019 meaning it  served more passengers than Peoria, Bloomington,   and Champaign combined. Of course, this is  a massive typo because Springfield actually   served 73,000 in 2019. Just for comparison, the  airport served 72,000 in 2022 which was a great   recovery but unfortunately, 2023 was pretty rough  as only 43,000 people flew from the airport.  Departure I took this flight on August 9th, the  second-to-last day Breeze would be flying   the Springfield-Tampa route before it ended for  the season on August 12th. The airline plans   to resume the route next summer but has not yet  finalized a date. Until then, Breeze will continue   serving Orlando twice a week throughout the year.  N224BZ is our aircraft today, a one-year-old   A220-300. It’s pretty cool that I’m flying this  aircraft since I flew its sister aircraft, 225,   from Tampa to Raleigh-Durham last year. And  I have to say, watching this aircraft pull up   to the gate with some classic Illinois cornfields  in the background was a pretty cool sight. Breeze   currently operates 28 A220-300s with another 62  on order. It’s the perfect aircraft for a low-cost   airline like Breeze and CEO David Neeleman has  consistently praised the A220’s economic and   efficient operations. With Breeze in Springfield  now, it’s the third airline offering nonstop   service between Central Illinois and Florida  alongside Allegiant and Frontier if they resume   service from Bloomington. Breeze is continuously  adding new cities to its route map, more so than   other airlines, so like I said I really do  hope they’ll expand further into Illinois.  Boarding started a good 15 minutes early this  morning and thanks to my seat in the Ascent cabin,   I boarded in Group 1 and was the first person  onboard the aircraft. Breeze’s A220 seats 137   passengers with 12 in Breeze Ascent and 125 in  Economy. 45 seats have a red trim on them and   are branded as extra legroom “Nicer” seats while  the remaining 80 seats have yellow trim and are   standard “Nice” seats that I’ve reviewed before.  My seat today is 3A and these Ascent seats are   amazing with large adjustable headrests and  some fantastic padding. The seatback features   a coat hook and a tablet holder with a really  large range of motion though it doesn’t need   to be folded out this much. There’s a large seat  pocket with some literature and leftover napkins   from the previous flight and a very generous 39  inches of pitch. Leg space is slightly restricted   thanks to a metal bar but this is among the most  legroom you’ll find in any domestic First Class,   beating the likes of American, Delta, and United.  Between seats is a small fold-down table I assume   for drinks and then at the bottom are two empty  storage cubbies where you could probably fit a   water bottle. On the center console is another  small shelf for drinks, some more storage down   there, and then the tray table which folds out  from the armrest. On the other side of the seat   is even more deep storage along with the seat  recline and footrest controls. And thanks to   the A220’s super large windows, there is no  shortage of natural light filling the cabin.  Inflight Ascent passengers receive complimentary beverages  and snacks on each flight, though there is no   proper meal service. Regardless, there is a wide  range of drinks and snacks to choose from which is   impressive for a low-cost airline. Just minutes  after takeoff, the flight attendant came around   taking drink and snack orders. Having not had  breakfast, I settled on the cranberry cocktail   and Belgian waffle. Was this too much sugar to  have in the morning? Oh yeah, absolutely, but it   definitely hit the spot and was more than enough.  The tray table itself is quite large and can be   slid forward if you need more space. It also has  a small device holder in case you want to place   your device here to watch shows instead of the  tablet holder on the seatback. Because I forgot to   cover this on the ground, the Ascent seats have a  remarkable amount of individual power ports, with   one universal outlet, one USB-A, and one USB-C  outlet at every seat. Breeze recently installed   WiFi across its A220 fleet. Internet access is  free for passengers booked in “Nicer” or “Nicest”   bundles otherwise it’s $8 for everyone else.  Despite this, you can actually get free messaging   and even stream free movies and TV shows like you  would on a full-service airline. I was happy to   see that there’s even a flight map available  and I ended up displaying this for the entire   flight. It shows the altitude, speed, and distance  remaining and of course where you’re flying by.  Now as far as recline goes, the seat reclines  pretty well though unfortunately, my seat would   never lock and whenever I tried to recline it, it  would always just keep sliding back to the upright   position. The more I looked around the seats, I  continued to see that they were pretty scuffed up   which I guess is more noticeable when the seats  are lightly colored like these. Not just that   but many parts of the seat were stained or dirty.  Here’s the footrest with a bunch of random stains   and marks on it followed by not just one but both  storage cubbies that had residual crumbs and junk   leftover from previous flights. Now Breeze being  a low-cost airline, schedules tight turnarounds   in between flights so this aircraft didn’t have  time to be cleaned in Springfield. However,   it spent the night in Tampa before flying to  Springfield that morning so I really don’t see any   excuse as to why the seat was in such condition.  Another thing I wanted to point out regarding the   Ascent seats themselves is that there’s barely  any individual privacy. Now this is mainly the   issue of Safran, the seat manufacturer but the way  these seats are designed is that it’s super easy   to be nosy towards other passengers by seeing  what they’re doing, watching, etc and the same   goes for other passengers toward you. I felt like  I couldn’t do anything without unintentionally   catching the attention of those seated behind  me which was unsettling but not such a massive   issue given the flight was not super full. Here’s something that I ended up noticing   that I thought would be cool to highlight. On the  back of the seat, the word “taxi” is translated to   “rodaje al pista” in Spanish whereas on the center  console, “taxi” is instead translated as simply   “taxeo”. Both translations are technically  correct, it’s just that “rodaje al pista” is   a more detailed translation meaning “taxiing to  the runway”. Now when I flew Breeze in its most   basic seat back in November, I noted that the  seat was super uncomfortable and that even the   one-hour flight to Raleigh was hard to tolerate.  While I can’t update my opinions today, I had the   exact opposite opinion on the Ascent product  and really enjoyed the flight. With that said,   we soon crossed into Florida and began our descent  into Tampa. Because of some storms in the area,   Arrival & Conclusion we made some notable deviations during  our approach. We sort of zig-zagged our   way through Central Florida passing over  Gainesville and Ocala before making a   tight 90-degree turn and landing on RWY 19L. At this point, we’re descending through 8,000   feet but if you look closely at the reflections  on the engine, you might be able to see that   the landing gear is already deployed. This is  definitely the highest I’ve ever seen the gear   lowered for landing and if anyone knows why the  pilots may have done this definitely let me know.  Initially, I booked this ticket under the “Nicer”  bundle for $113 one-way which included an extra   legroom seat. However, during check-in, I upgraded  to Ascent for $62 bringing my total one-way ticket   price to $175 which is fantastic value for  a premium cabin. Now I should mention that   I was supposed to fly on August 5th but with  Hurricane Debby hitting Florida at that time,   I changed my ticket to the 9th. Even still, Breeze  gave me $29 in flight credits which was amazing   but I also ended up being downgraded to the  “Nice” ticket bundle still keeping my seat   in Ascent. That didn’t matter to me a whole lot  since I didn’t need the extra baggage allowance   or WiFi that my original “Nicer” ticket came  with. But overall, it was an exceptional flight   and I’d even go as far as to say that this was  one of my favorite domestic flights ever. I would   definitely choose Breeze again but more likely  for shorter 1-2 hour flights. The airline does   operate longer 6-7 hour transcontinental  routes but as far as premium cabins go,   that’s a long time to go without proper meals.  But for the price you pay, Breeze offers some of   the best value in the industry today and I can’t  wait to see where else they expand in the future.  And with that, welcome to Tampa and thank you very  much for joining me today. I won’t have very long   before my next flight but we will pick up there  next week. If you enjoy my work, check out the   description for ways you can support the channel  as I don’t earn anything through these videos.   But anyway, that will do it for today so until  next time, take care everyone, and see you soon.