Breeze Airways to Restore Scheduled Service at Arnold Palmer Airport With Myrtle Beach and Orlando Flights

Scheduled airline service is returning to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, with Breeze Airways set to become the airport’s new passenger carrier following the collapse of Spirit Airlines earlier this year.

The Westmoreland County Airport Authority approved an agreement with Breeze on Tuesday, clearing the way for the airline to begin nonstop flights from Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) to Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR) and Orlando International Airport (MCO) in 2027.

Myrtle Beach will come first, with Breeze showing service beginning in February 2027. Orlando follows on May 26, 2027, with flights scheduled on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

For Arnold Palmer Airport, the agreement ends a difficult period in which a facility built around leisure-oriented scheduled service suddenly found itself without a commercial airline after Spirit ceased operations in May.

It also brings Breeze into a market that fits almost perfectly with the carrier’s strategy: connect smaller or underserved cities nonstop to destinations where there is proven leisure demand.

Breeze Replaces Spirit After Five Months Without Airline Service

Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) had relied heavily on Spirit Airlines for years.

Spirit began serving Latrobe in 2011 and eventually became the airport’s only scheduled passenger carrier. Its network from LBE varied over time, but Florida and Myrtle Beach were consistently among the most important markets.

Immediately before Spirit’s shutdown, the airline was flying to Orlando (MCO) and had recently restored seasonal service to Myrtle Beach (MYR). In previous years, Spirit also linked Latrobe with destinations including Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Fort Myers (RSW), Tampa (TPA), Las Vegas (LAS) and Dallas Fort Worth (DFW).

That entire network disappeared when Spirit ceased passenger operations in early May 2026.

Arnold Palmer was hit particularly hard because, unlike a large airport where another airline can absorb displaced traffic, Spirit represented essentially the airport’s entire scheduled passenger operation.

Summer capacity at LBE consequently fell by more than 90% compared with 2023 levels, according to aviation data cited by Aviation Week.

Breeze now gives the airport a path back.

The First Two Routes Restore Proven Latrobe Markets

Breeze is not experimenting with completely unfamiliar destinations from Latrobe.

Both announced routes previously worked as part of Spirit’s LBE network.

The first will connect Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) with Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR) beginning in February 2027.

The route covers approximately 456 miles and historically has been a natural fit for the western Pennsylvania leisure market. Myrtle Beach is reachable by car from the region, but the drive can approach 11 hours depending on the starting point and traffic. A nonstop flight is roughly an hour and a half.

Myrtle Beach itself has become increasingly important to Breeze. Following Spirit’s shutdown, Breeze has expanded aggressively at MYR and is expected to become the airport’s largest carrier by seats and destinations during 2027. The airline announced 11 additional Myrtle Beach routes on the same day as the Latrobe announcement.

That makes LBE-MYR a logical route from both ends.

The Orlando service begins several months later.

Breeze will launch nonstop flights between Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) and Orlando International Airport (MCO) on May 26, 2027. Orlando Airport currently lists the route as new service beginning on that date, while Breeze has scheduled flights on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Introductory fares on the Orlando route have been advertised from $59 one way on qualifying dates, although Breeze’s lowest fares generally exclude optional services and are subject to availability and restrictions.

An $850,000 Federal Grant Helped Bring Breeze To Latrobe

Breeze’s arrival is not simply the result of an airline independently deciding to add another dot to its route map.

Arnold Palmer Regional Airport received an $850,000 Small Community Air Service Development Program grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in September.

The program is intended to help smaller communities attract or restore scheduled airline service, often by providing financial incentives or revenue guarantees that reduce the airline’s risk during the early stages of a new route.

In this case, the grant was specifically aimed at restoring low-cost nonstop service between Latrobe and Florida and/or Myrtle Beach.

There was also a clue hidden in the grant process.

The airport’s application included support from an unnamed airline willing to consider the proposed service. It is now known that Breeze was that airline, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times.

That suggests Tuesday’s announcement was the result of negotiations that had been underway well before the public knew Breeze would ultimately replace Spirit.

For Breeze, the grant reduces some of the risk involved in opening another small-city station.

For Westmoreland County, it provides a way to restart passenger traffic rather than waiting indefinitely for an airline to enter the market entirely on its own.

Breeze Is A Very Different Airline From The Spirit That Left

Although Breeze is replacing Spirit’s service, the two airlines are not identical.

Spirit built much of its business around very high-density Airbus A320-family aircraft, aggressive base fares and extensive ancillary fees.

Breeze also competes heavily on price, but its strategy has increasingly centered on underserved nonstop routes rather than simply competing against large airlines on major city pairs.

Founder and CEO David Neeleman — who was also involved in the creation of JetBlue, WestJet and several other carriers — designed Breeze around the idea that many passengers will pay for a convenient nonstop flight rather than connecting through a major hub.

Arnold Palmer Regional Airport is almost a textbook example.

Breeze does not need LBE to function as a hub or generate connecting passengers. Its goal is to identify enough travelers in western Pennsylvania who want to fly directly to places such as Myrtle Beach and Orlando without first driving to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) and connecting elsewhere.

Breeze says its network now covers more than 90 cities, with a strong emphasis on markets that have limited nonstop competition.

Latrobe Will See The Airbus A220-300

There is also a major aircraft difference from the previous Spirit operation.

Breeze completed the retirement of its final Embraer E190 in September 2026 and now operates scheduled passenger service exclusively with the Airbus A220-300. The carrier had 55 A220s delivered when the E190 phaseout was completed and continues taking additional aircraft against a firm order book of 90.

That means, barring a future fleet change before launch, Breeze’s Latrobe flights will be operated with the A220-300.

Breeze typically configures its A220-300s with 137 seats, including 12 premium “Ascent” seats, 45 extra-legroom seats and 80 standard Economy seats.

The aircraft is particularly well suited to this type of operation.

The A220 was designed around the roughly 100- to 150-seat market and combines relatively low trip costs with the range needed for much longer missions than LBE-MYR or LBE-MCO. It uses Pratt & Whitney PW1500G geared turbofan engines and offers a five-abreast, 2-3 cabin arrangement rather than the six-abreast configuration found on Airbus A320-family and Boeing 737 aircraft.

For passengers, that means only one middle seat per row.

For Breeze, the more important figure is capacity. A 137-seat aircraft gives the airline enough seats to achieve favorable unit economics without having to regularly fill a 180- or 190-seat narrowbody from a small regional airport.

That becomes especially important on routes operating only a few times per week.

Arnold Palmer Has More Than Enough Runway For The A220

The airport itself is also well equipped for the aircraft.

Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) has a single primary runway, Runway 6/24, measuring approximately 8,224 feet long and 150 feet wide. The airport sits at an elevation of roughly 1,199 feet.

An 8,200-foot runway gives LBE substantial operational flexibility for an aircraft such as the A220-300, particularly on relatively short routes to Myrtle Beach and Orlando.

The airport also has an operating control tower, instrument approaches and Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting capability appropriate for scheduled airline operations.

Spirit previously operated Airbus A319 and A320-family aircraft from the airport, so mainline narrowbody operations are nothing new for Latrobe.

Breeze Arrives As Arnold Palmer Opens Its Expanded Terminal

The timing could hardly be better for the airport.

Arnold Palmer Regional has been completing a major terminal expansion designed to provide significantly more capacity and modernize the passenger experience.

The approximately 32,000-square-foot terminal project includes two gates capable of handling several hundred passengers and new jet bridges, addressing one of the airport’s longstanding limitations when multiple flights overlap.

The expansion was planned while Spirit remained the airport’s primary airline. When Spirit disappeared, that created the unusual situation of a regional airport finishing a significant terminal investment while having no scheduled carrier to use it.

Breeze changes that equation.

The Westmoreland County Airport Authority formally approved the Breeze agreement on the same day it showcased the next phase of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport’s terminal development.

Rather than opening an expanded facility with empty airline gates, LBE now has scheduled passenger service on the calendar for early 2027.

Passenger Traffic Has Significant Room To Recover

Breeze will still have work to do rebuilding Latrobe’s passenger base.

Arnold Palmer handled nearly 356,000 passengers at its peak in 2015, when Spirit’s operation was considerably larger.

By 2025, passenger traffic had fallen to slightly more than 119,000 travelers, reflecting years of route reductions, the pandemic and changes within Spirit itself.

The loss of Spirit in 2026 pushed scheduled traffic effectively to zero.

That history demonstrates both the opportunity and the challenge facing Breeze.

There is clear evidence that travelers in Westmoreland County and the surrounding region will use a local airport when the destinations, schedules and fares are attractive. But rebuilding LBE to anything approaching its previous traffic levels will require more than two routes operating several times per week.

Myrtle Beach and Orlando are logical starting points because the demand has already been proven.

If they perform well, Breeze has a network full of other leisure destinations that could potentially fit the Latrobe market.

Breeze Will Serve Both Latrobe And Pittsburgh International

Another interesting element is that Breeze is not choosing between Arnold Palmer Regional Airport and Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).

It will serve both.

Breeze already operates from Pittsburgh International and has continued expanding there. The carrier recently added nonstop service from PIT to Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB) in Florida and has announced international service to Cancún International Airport (CUN) and Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ).

The two Western Pennsylvania airports therefore appear to serve different roles in Breeze’s network.

Pittsburgh International provides access to a much larger metropolitan passenger base and can support longer and more diverse routes.

Arnold Palmer Regional provides something different: a smaller, highly convenient airport for passengers east of Pittsburgh, particularly in Westmoreland County and the Laurel Highlands.

LBE also promotes free short- and long-term parking, short security lines and a compact terminal, advantages that can matter to leisure travelers comparing the total inconvenience and cost of driving farther to a major airport.

For families traveling to Orlando or Myrtle Beach, that convenience may be one of Breeze’s strongest selling points.

Bottom Line

Breeze Airways will restore scheduled passenger service to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport (LBE) in 2027, ending the airport’s period without a commercial carrier following Spirit Airlines’ shutdown in May.

Breeze will begin with nonstop flights to Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR) in February, followed by twice-weekly service to Orlando International Airport (MCO) beginning May 26.

The agreement was supported in part by an $850,000 U.S. Department of Transportation Small Community Air Service Development grant designed to help restore low-cost service from Latrobe to leisure destinations previously served by Spirit.

There is also a notable aircraft upgrade involved. Breeze has completed its transition to an all-Airbus A220-300 scheduled fleet, replacing the high-density A319 and A320 aircraft that passengers commonly saw during the Spirit years with a 137-seat A220 featuring premium, extra-legroom and standard Economy seating.

More importantly for Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, the announcement arrives just as its expanded terminal is becoming available.

For now, two routes will not recreate the airport’s peak years, when LBE approached 356,000 annual passengers. But Myrtle Beach and Orlando are exactly the kind of proven leisure markets on which to start rebuilding.

If Breeze can make those routes work, Arnold Palmer Regional Airport may have found not simply a replacement for Spirit, but an airline whose entire strategy of connecting underserved cities is particularly well matched to what Latrobe has to offer.