Airfare Inching up at Cleveland Hopkins Airport; Passengers, Flights Rebounding, too

Airfare from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is inching up, as air travel increases in Northeast Ohio and across the United States.

Planes this summer are expected to be fuller than travelers have seen in more than a year, with leisure demand surging.

"The supply can't keep up with how quickly demand is returning," said Melanie Lieberman, senior travel editor at The Points Guy travel site. "Passengers should not expect empty planes or empty middle seats."

Transportation Security Administration lines could be long, as well, she said, as the agency works to hire back screeners.

City officials are predicting that between 2 million and 2.2 million travelers will use Cleveland Hopkins between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That's about two-thirds of the 3.1 million passengers who traveled through Hopkins during the same period in 2019, and up nearly 500% from the 350,000 who traveled last summer.

Cleveland's airfares have tracked closely to the national average, plummeting in March 2020, rebounding somewhat last summer, then dropping again last fall.

Fares have been on the increase throughout most of 2021, as travelers plan spring break and now summer trips, according to travel site Hopper.

The average round-trip fare to or from Cleveland is $285, according to a Hopper analysis conducted this week for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com. The average fare is up from a pandemic low of $144 in March 2020.

It's down modestly, from $301, from May 2019, which is a month that typically sees rising rates as travelers make summer plans.

Not all fares, of course, are created equal.

In Cleveland, a quick search of fares to popular leisure destinations shows a wide range of prices, from $425 round-trip to Los Angeles in early July on United, to $167 to Orlando on Frontier.

Key West, a very popular destination this summer, is $375 with a stop in Charlotte on American for dates in early July; Myrtle Beach is $173 on Spirit; Newark, New Jersey, is $219 on United.

Lieberman advises travelers to be flexible with both dates and destinations to achieve the best fares. "We're encouraging people to really do their research and find slightly more off-the-beaten path destinations," she said.

Airlines, meanwhile, continue to add new flights in an effort to attract leisure passengers.

United Airlines this weekend started new summer-only service from Cleveland to five leisure-oriented destinations: Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach and Charleston, South Carolina; Pensacola, Florida; and Portland, Maine.

At the Akron-Canton Airport, new carrier Breeze Airways announced last week service to leisure destinations New Orleans, Tampa and Charleston, South Carolina, starting in late June.

In addition, carriers are continuing to resume routes that they suspended during the pandemic.

Air Canada will return to Cleveland Hopkins after a more than year-long absence, resuming daily service to Toronto on July 1.

And United is bringing back nonstop service to Los Angeles and San Francisco, scheduled to start next week.

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