“Breeze has filed with DOT (jointly with Compass) to acquire the certificate of Compass. Reading between the lines of the DOT application, it appears the cost of the certificate may be about $2-3mm? Though obviously the actual number is redacted, this is what it appears it might be by squinting at the financial statements.

Initial aircraft will be 15 E-190s under contract with a lessor (Nordic Aviation Capital) - no longer Azul. First one to arrive Aug 2020. A220s pushed back to August 2021.

Neeleman is no longer funding the effort by himself. Some additional investors have thrown a modest amount of money (about $4mm) in the kitty, including Joel Peterson, Robert Milton, Michael Lazarus, various mgmt (Lukas Johnson, Trent Porter, etc). The usual suspects. There's also a CARES Act PPP loan (Small Business Administration) to the tune of $1mm. Since Breeze is not an airline yet, obviously it could not access the airline program. The document does not mention Neeleman putting in any more of his own money.

Application says that they're negotiating with a US investor for $25mm in equity, at which point three other investors are supposed to throw in another $20mm (total, between the three).

This is not the first time that this certificate has been transferred in almost the same way. The Compass certificate was once the Independence Air (previously known as Atlantic Coast Airlines) certificate. Northwest bought that certificate from the Independence Air estate after it started liquidation proceedings - FLYi stopped flying Jan 2006, the transfer application was filed April 2006, finally approved by DOT April of 2007, first revenue flight of Compass was May (with a CRJ200 - the airline was recertified with FAA with the CRJ200 so that manuals could be leveraged - after certification, Compass transitioned to E-175s). So from application thru DOT approval took 12 months.

So if this works, Breeze would be the inheritor of the Independence Air legacy, for what that's worth.

Breeze is seeking a more aggressive timetable than Compass managed back in the day. It would like to start service (charter service) by Oct 15, 2020 - so it needs a result in three months. So... aggressive. Covid? What's that?

October of this year is likely to be pretty eventful, given that it's the first month without CARES Act Grant restrictions. Scheduled service would start six months later according to the application. The timeline for the first year of operation shows over 15 aircraft in service within a year. And 18 scheduled service airports. Also... aggressive.”