Breeze launches nonstop Raleigh-Durham to Atlantic City service

Wake County travelers got a new low-cost nonstop option Thursday as Breeze Airways began service from Raleigh-Durham International Airport to Atlantic City, New Jersey. With fares announced from $39 one way, the route is aimed squarely at leisure travelers who want a direct trip to the Jersey Shore casino-and-boardwalk market without paying for a connection through a bigger hub.

The practical appeal is clear for Triangle residents planning weekend breaks, family visits or short trips to a destination built around tourism. Atlantic City says it draws more than 27 million visitors a year, and its boardwalk, first built in 1870, stretches four miles along the shoreline and another mile and a half into Ventnor City. For travelers in Wake County, that gives Breeze a direct play for beach trips, casino runs and quick getaways that can be hard to price competitively on traditional one-stop itineraries.

The new route also underscores how fast Breeze has grown at RDU. When the carrier launched in November 2022, it served eight nonstop destinations from the airport on Airbus A220 aircraft with up to 137 seats. RDU now says Breeze serves 40 destinations there, more than any other airline, with Atlantic City among the latest additions. That kind of expansion suggests the airline sees enough consistent demand in the Triangle to keep adding point-to-point routes instead of relying only on connections through major hubs.

For RDU, the Atlantic City launch is another marker of a larger growth story. The airport reported a record 14.5 million travelers in 2023 and projected more than 15.5 million passengers for 2025, after January 2024 traffic topped 967,600 passengers, up 10.5% from a year earlier. Breeze’s footprint has become part of that momentum, and RDU said in September 2025 that the airline planned to open a crew base at the airport in 2026 and bring more than 200 jobs to the Research Triangle region.

Atlantic City International Airport said the RDU route is the first scheduled North Carolina service in its history, filling a gap for travelers on both ends of the route. At RDU, Breeze flights depart from Terminal 1, and the airport’s broader destination growth reflects the same thing local businesses and travelers are already seeing: as the Triangle expands, direct air service is becoming a bigger part of the region’s economic reach.