After flying American Airlines out to Pittsburgh, I flew Breeze Airways back to Los Angeles in “Ascent” Class, its premium cabin, on an Airbus A220-300. While the experience was mostly positive with a comfortable seat, fast Wi-Fi, and friendly service, the aircraft was filthy. I’ve never been on a dirtier plane.

Breeze Airways A220-300 Ascent Class Review (PIT-LAX)

Both Breeze Airways and American Airlines fly nonstop between Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. Breeze schedule and pricing worked much better for my return to Los Angeles.

Booking

Breeze sells everyone a base fare. In my case, it was $119 for a “no flex” fare. From that base fare, you can upgrade to Nice (flexible ticket), Nicer (flexible ticket with checked bag and free Wi-Fi), or Nicest (first class Breeze Ascent seat with flexibility and two checked bags), charged as an ancillary cost.

It’s somewhat of a strange way to do it, but I suppose it saves Breeze taxes since the federal excise tax is only levied on the base fare?

Thus, in my case it was $119 for the ticket and $192 for the upgrade, for a total of $311.

Breeze was running a 45% off promotion the day I booked my ticket and I thought I would come out ahead or at least even by adding a return…but even thoguh it was just a round-trip from Pittsburgh within the date parameters of the promotion, the system rejected the code and Breeze’s Twitter/X team was no help.

So ultimately, I dropped the return and just booked the one-way from PIT-LAX. Even if had worked, the discount would have been only off the base fare (pre-tax), not the upgrade to “Nicest” class.

Breeze does not charge for an Ascent seat assignment when you book into “Nicest” Class:

I could have made the trip fully-refundable for $211 more.

Check-In

When I arrived at Pittsburgh (on AA) I took a picture of the Breeze check-in facility, figuring it might be crowded when i flew out. Sure enough, there were long check-in lines when I departed. Because I was not checking any bags, I just used the app to check in and bypassed the line altogether.

Early Boarding

My boarding pass said that boarding would begin at 8:53 am for my 9:23 am departure. I showed up at the gate at 8:40 am, hoping to be among the first onboard so I could get some pictures, but found the gate area deserted…boarding had begun more than an hour prior to takeoff and was almost complete.

I asked the agents why my boarding indicated an 8:53 am boarding time, but was told, “Oh, they want us to board early. We always start much earlier than that.”

Good to know…maybe, Breeze, you just reflect the actual boarding time on your boarding pass?

Breeze (MX) 544
Pittsburgh (PIT) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Wednesday, April 16
Depart: 9:23 AM
Arrive: 11:54 AM
Duration: 5hr, 31min
Distance: 2,136 miles
Aircraft: Airbus A220-300
Seat: 2F (Ascent Class)

I already shared my inial impressions of this flight, but want to share more details in this full review.

> Read More: My First Time Flying Breeze Airways: Friendly, Fashionable, But Filthy…

Breeze Ascent “First Class” Seat

The front cabin on Breeze is called Ascent. Although Breeze markets it as a “first class” seat, it is not a first class product and there is no curtain dividing this section in the first three rows of the aircraft. Breeze uses Airbus A220-300 aircraft with 2-2 seating in business class (same seat as my Bulgaria Airlines A220 flight last year).

These are Safran Z600 seats and have an adjustable headrest, a tablet holder, a water bottle holder, and a “sleeperette style” leg rest (which is a step above most domestic first class products). Seat pitch is a generous 39 inches and the seats are 20.5 inches wide. Recline is also generous.

I found the cabin very attractive: soft mood lighting and light colors work very well. The seat itself was also comfortable: I only got up once during the 5.5-hour flight (which took the full 5.5 hours).

Breeze does not appear to do a great job of monetizing the cabin, because it was only booked 7/12 (an eighth passenger, an off-duty FedEx employee, was upgraded just before we took off). It was certainly nice to have the seat next to me open, but I’d think that Breeze could probably sell these seats for some revenue on the day of departure if it tried a little harder.

Filthy Cabin

But there was a problem on the flight…a needless problem, as far as I am concerned. The cabin was filthy.  There was dust, dander, and trash all around the seat: on the tray table, between cushions, in storage areas, and on the floor. Does anyone ever do a deep clean of these aircraft? Ever? Apparently not…

While I would not call it a dealbreaker, the cabin cleanliness was deplorable…such a stupid, penny-wise, pound-foolish mistake. I realize the low-cost model must optimize an aircraft’s time in the air, but looking at the particular aircraft that operated my flight, I saw that it had sat the night before in Providence, RI (PVD). That would have been the time to vacuum it…

Food + Drink

There are no meals in Ascent Class: just a snack basket and complimentary beverages (including alcoholic beverages). Beverages are served in plastic.

Snacks and drinks were offered shortly after takeoff.

I had Java House Cold Brew coffee (too sweet with the vanilla flavor added) and Spindrift sparkling water with a lemon flavor, which was very satisfying. This was also my first time trying Zappo potato chips…wow, those New Orleans kettle-style chips were so delicious! It took a lot of restraint to limit myself to one bag.

You can also buy a snack box for $12, but this is not included in Ascent Class. It included:

• Partners Slow Baked Olive Oil & Sea Salt Crackers
• Madi K’s Sea Salt Almonds
• That’s it Fig+Apples Fruit Bar
• White Cheddar Cheese Spread
• Old Wisconsin Beef Snack Stick

Wi-Fi + IFE

Free high-speed Wi-Fi is available (free for Ascent Class) and it worked very well during the flight. The moving flight map, howeer, did not function:

There was also a generous selection of streaming movies available for free on your computer, tablet, or mobile phone.

It was quite a beautiful day to look out the window, too:

There was a heavy cloud cover over Los Angeles.

Service

While the service was not polished like you might expect in JetBlue Mint Class, the flight attendants were very nice and Tashae, who worked the Ascent cabin, was very attentive. I quite liked the more casual FA uniforms with white tennis shoes…it fits the carrier well.

Lavatories

I quite like the A220 lavatories, which I find roomier than on older Airbus A320 family and Boeing 737 planes. The forward lavatory was not reserved exclusively for Ascent class: anyone could use it, which did result in some extra foot traffic in the cabin.

CONCLUSION

We landed on-time in Los Angeles, where the plane only had a 50-minute turnaround before it returned to Pittsburgh.

I was glad to try Breeze for the first time and, all things considered, was very thankful that I only paid $311 for a remarkably productive, comfortable flight between PIT and LAX…$311 is an excellent price for a nonstop transcontinental flight in a business class seat. I’d choose it any day over my AA flight in the opposite direction, which cost $540 and another $28 for Wi-Fi and had a less comfortable seat that did not have USB-C.