JetBlue begins service at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport

Flying out of Cleveland Hopkins has gotten much cheaper in recent years, thanks to new service from low-cost carriers including Frontier, Spirit and JetBlue.

(Marvin Fong)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The average airfare at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport dropped 20 percent in the second quarter of 2015 from the year before - a dramatic decrease attributed to the addition of several low-cost airlines to the market.

The average airfare from Cleveland was $371 during the second quarter of 2015 - down significantly from $465 a year before, according to recently released figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Nationwide, the average fare dropped only modestly, less than 3 percent, from $396 to $385 in the second quarter of 2015, according to the DOT.

In Cleveland, there's little doubt as to what has spurred the price cut: The closure by United Airlines of its hub in 2013, which led to several new, low-cost airlines setting up shop at Hopkins, including Frontier, Spirit and JetBlue airlines.

"It's a good trend for Cleveland," said Tom Reich, an aviation consultant based outside Washington, D.C. "There are probably a lot of people who never flew before who are now flying from Hopkins because of the prices."

The airport continues to rebound from the dramatic drop in passengers that followed the closure of the United hub.

The airport Friday released data from September and October, which shows continued growth in passenger traffic. In those two months, more than 1.4 million passengers traveled through Cleveland Hopkins, up more than 18 percent from a year before. Year to date (January through October), Hopkins' traffic is up more than 5 percent over 2014.

Reich said he expects those passenger numbers to continue to increase.

"The low-fare carriers seem to be the ones that are growing the fastest in the U.S.," said Reich, who is director of air service development at AvPORTS, an airport management company in Dulles, Virginia.

Indeed, Frontier Airlines this week announced the addition of 42 new routes across the country starting in April - including four new destinations from Cleveland: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon. Fares on those routes are low, starting at $129 one-way, to the West Coast.

Not only do these low-cost airlines offer their own low fares, they tend to force down the fares of an airport's other carriers, said Reich.

The average fare at Cleveland Hopkins used to be among the nation's highest. At $371, it's now below many nearby airports - including Columbus ($409), Pittsburgh ($392), Cincinnati ($436) and Detroit ($428).

The average fare at the Akron-Canton Airport, however, remains significantly lower than Cleveland's, at $322.

Reich said he knows many Clevelanders were devastated by the loss of United's hub and he recognizes that many destinations are no long accessible from Cleveland via nonstop flights.

"But every passenger paid dearly for that convenience," he said. "People were accustomed to it because they didn't know any better."