Breeze Airways First Class Experience: Worth The Cost?

In June of 2025, my family and I embarked on a trip to San Diego, California. Like most experienced travelers, we love flying nonstop to avoid long layovers and flight delays. There are only a few nonstop flights from CVG (Cincinnati-Northern KY International Airport) to San Diego (SAN), so we were fortunate to discover an airline with convenient nonstop options and great flight times. That airline was Breeze Airways. I had never flown with them before, but my research painted them as a reasonable choice. I saw this as an opportunity to experience first class on a new airline and evaluate if it was truly worth it. For the scope of this blog, I will only be reviewing my first-class experience on Breeze Airways, which is termed as the “Nicest” seat class on their website.

Flight Check-In

The airline did send me both an email and a text 24 hours before our flights to San Diego and back to Cincinnati, but this is fairly customary for an airline to do this. Checking in online was straightforward, yet here’s the catch: you still had to stand in line at the counter to drop off your bags. Two glaring issues arose: 1) The counter conveniently opens only 2 hours before your flight, so if you get there early, tough luck—you’ll be stuck waiting. 2) There’s no separate line for first-class passengers or even a designated line for bag drop-off, meaning that despite shelling out big bucks for the first-class experience, you’re left with no advantages at check-in. While the line in San Diego was fairly short to check in for our flight, the Cincinnati line was a nightmare—long and slow, with no special treatment for those of us who paid more for that first-class ticket.

Boarding

The boarding process was relatively standard in comparison to other airlines. Our group was designated as Group 1 due to our first-class tickets. However, several passengers, including those with disabilities and families with small children, boarded before us, which was expected. Overall, the boarding procedure was efficient and did not take an excessive amount of time, even though the flight was at full capacity. This consistency in the boarding experience was observed at both San Diego and Cincinnati airports.

Seating

We were in the first row on both flights, so unfortunately, we did not get storage under the seat in front of us. However, we did have an overhead bin for our personal item that we brought onboard, and it appeared that there was a little more legroom in the first row vs. the other first class rows. Below are the details for the first class seats:

First Class:

• Number of seats: 12
• Configuration: 2-2
• Seat dimensions: Approximately 20.5 inches wide, 39 inches pitch (legroom)
• Features: Recliner-style seats with extra legroom, leg rests, and power outlets

Now I want to point out that almost everywhere I looked online, including Breeze Airways themselves, it claims there’s a leg rest with first class seating. In fact, their website boasts: “Breeze Ascent* – Fly up front in our First Class style seat. Enjoy a spacious recliner with 39” of seat pitch and a leg rest. *Available on A220 flights.” However, that is just not true. While I did get a spacious recliner, the leg rests have apparently been rendered inoperable by the airline, as confirmed by the flight crew onboard. It’s rather amusing that this issue isn’t mentioned anywhere on their website, nor did I find any reputable travel sites acknowledging it before I purchased my ticket. Given that this is touted as part of the so-called upgraded experience in first class, especially on a long flight, wouldn’t it make sense for them to at least update their website to reflect this reality?

Despite all of this, the seats were roomy and fairly comfortable, but really, Breeze? Let’s be honest and transparent about what you’re actually providing for that significant price hike.

First Class Experience

There are several other items worth mentioning about my experience in the “Nicest” seats on Breeze Airways that I would like our readers to be aware of:

1. This is supposedly a budget airline. If you’ve ever flown first class on other airlines, you know the flight crew is usually fairly attentive to your needs. But on Breeze? Not so much. The flight attendants checked on us twice on a 4-hour and 20-minute flight from CVG to SAN, and only once on the way back home on the 4-hour flight. Sure, they came by occasionally to pick up trash, but let’s be honest—they did that for everyone. Far more time was spent discussing their weekend plans and scrolling on their phones than actually checking on passengers (see pic below). Honestly, I expected a bit more in First Class, even if this is a budget airline.
2. Several drinks (alcoholic beverages) & snacks were included, which seemed nice at first, but be prepared to flag down a flight attendant if you want anything beyond the initial offering. We also did not have any ice for our drinks when flying back home from San Diego. Not sure if that was an airport issue or an airline issue.
3. There are no screens for inflight entertainment so make sure if you want to watch something, you have/bring your own screen.
4. You do get Wifi included in the Nicest bundle, but it’s pretty spotty. Only a handful of us were actually able to connect, and the crew was not extremely helpful in helping my kids access the free Wifi in our bundle. Evidently, it’s up to us to play the IT role again! And we still couldn’t get it working…..
5. While I am aware that the flight crew doubles as the cleaning crew, I can’t help but point out that the spaces between the seats and the tray tables left a lot to be desired in terms of cleanliness. At least we were provided with cleaning wipes (upon request) to ensure our surfaces were disinfected.

Final Thoughts

I don’t want to come off sounding like a pessimist, so I would like to share a few positive highlights from our trip! The takeoff and landing were incredibly smooth, and we were very pleased with the pilots’ skills. The comfortable seats made the journey much more pleasant. Additionally, none of our luggage was lost, which is definitely a win! Although our flight back to CVG from SAN was delayed for a few hours due to weather, we appreciated the constant updates we received via email and text.

Our all-in ticket price for First Class (Nicest Bundle) on Breeze Airways for 2 adults & 2 teenagers was $3500. The cost may have been higher due to traveling in the summer months to a popular vacation destination. So while we would have preferred to pay much less, the flight times seemed absolutely perfect, and we loved the idea of a nonstop flight. We were hopeful for an exceptional first-class experience! However, with the wisdom we’ve gained, I can emphatically declare that for that jaw-dropping price, it was unequivocally not worth it. I am going to give them a rating of 6/10, and I think that is fairly generous given the cost of our tickets.