Report Says Air Travelers Favoring Hopkins

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many changes to air travel including a preference by Northeast Ohio air travelers to use Cleveland Hopkins Airport rather than Akron-Canton Airport, a report by WOIO-TV said.

The report attributed that trend to, in part, lack of air travel options at CAK.

Some air service that was lost at Akron-Canton during the pandemic has yet to return.

This includes Delta Air Line service to Atlanta, United Express flights to Houston, and American Eagle flights to New York LaGuardia and Chicago O’Hare airports.

United Express last spring ceased flying from CAK to Washington Dulles and Spirit Airlines is suspending service to Akron-Canton this month until November.

Some of those losses have been offset by such gains as Breeze Airways coming to Akron-Canton a year ago and Allegiant Air returning last March.

Both of those carriers offer low fare but less than daily flights to leisure travel destinations, many of which are in Florida.

Of course even before the pandemic Hopkins was by far the dominant airport in Northeast Ohio with 78 percent of the business.

The WOIO report did not say what percentage of the market Hopkins has now, writing only that, “a big chunk of travelers who once chose to fly out of Akron-Canton and other smaller airports in the area are now coming to Cleveland.”

At one time Youngstown had commercial flights but those ended in January 2018. Scheduled air service at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport also ended during the pandemic and has not yet returned.

Cleveland’s Director of port control Robert Kennedy, who also serves as the director of Hopkins, said traffic at Hopkins is almost back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

During the summer travel season between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Hopkins expects to handle 2.8 million travelers. Last summer it saw 2.3 million travelers during the summer travel season.

Kennedy expects some increases in flights at both Hopkins and Akron-Canton once airlines and the Transportation Security Administration are able to hire additional workers.

As for more travelers seeming to prefer flying out of Hopkins, Kennedy said, that market has shifted and is “responding well to the flights and the carriers and the destinations” that Hopkins has.

“As soon as the resource issue is resolved we think we’ll see more flights,” Kennedy said.

Allegiant to Stop Flying to Cleveland in January

Low fare carrier Allegiant Air will cease flying to Cleveland Hopkins Airport next January, citing high fees which it said would make it difficult to hold fares down.

The last Allegiant flight will take off from Hopkins on Jan. 3, 2022.

Passengers holding tickets for travel on Allegiant from Cleveland after that date will be offered a refund of their paid fare or accommodated on Allegiant flights serving other airports.

Allegiant flies from Cleveland to seven destinations, including five in Florida. It accounts for 3 percent of Hopkins passenger traffic.

In a statement, Allegiant’s Hilarie Grey, managing director of corporate communications, said the carrier’s flights in Cleveland had been “very successful” but the decision to leave Hopkins was rooted in the airport’s cost structure.

 “Unfortunately with the airport’s construction projects and major expansion, the cost structure has become prohibitive to our operation – our business model hinges upon our ability to keep fares low for our customers,” Grey said.

Allegiant began flying to Hopkins in 2017 after ending its flights to Akron-Canton Airport.

The website Simply Flying suggested that Allegiant might eye a return to CAK as an alternative to flying to Hopkins.

It cited the example of Columbus where Allegiant uses Rickenbacker International Airport rather than John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

Allegiant is the only passenger carrier at Rickenbacker, which also serves charter flights and air cargo operations.

Cleveland’s Allegiant flight destinations include Orlando-Sanford, Punta Gorda, Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Jacksonville in Florida and Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah-Hilton Head, Georgia.

None of those flights operate daily, which is typical for many routes offered by low fare carriers.

Airline fees at Hopkins have traditionally been among the highest in the industry.

Airport officials said that despite some recent construction projects, those fees have not increased to pay for them.

However, Hopkins and many other airports saw the fees they charge airlines spike during the COVID-19 pandemic due to diminished passenger traffic. Those fees were expected to diminish as traffic rebuilt.

A story in The Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com said fees at Hopkins are structured to reward carriers that fly more. That hurt Allegiant because its flights operate less than once daily.

Hopkins Airport director Robert Kennedy said he has sought to keep airline fees in check by cutting the airport’s debt and increasing revenue from non-airline operations.

Nonetheless, Hopkins has begun the process of planning to build a new airport terminal and airline fees are expected to help fund that.

Construction of the new terminal is not expected to begin until 2025 at the earliest.

 In other airline news affecting Hopkins, United Airlines plans to launch service on Dec. 18 from Cleveland to Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau in the Bahamas.

The Saturday-only flights will be the only direct service to the Caribbean from Cleveland this winter.

The flights will use Embraer 175 regional jets, meaning they will be operated by a contract carrier flying under the United Express banner.

Ultimate Air Resumes Cleveland Flights

Northeast Ohio-based Ultimate Air Shuttle has resumed flights between Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland and Cincinnati Lunken Airport.

The carrier, which is based at Akron-Canton Airport resumed flying the route last month after suspending service in mid 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimate operates as an air charter carrier offering public charters.

In other airline news, Spirit Airlines has begun a route between Akron-Canton Airport and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The flights do not operate every day. Spirit also links CAK and Orlando and has winter and spring seasonal service to Tampa and Fort Myers.

At Cleveland Hopkins Airport, Frontier Airlines plans to start flying to Atlanta on June 11.

The quad-weekly flights will have plenty of competition as the route is also served by Delta, Southwest and Spirit airlines.

Frontier is currently flying from Cleveland to Orlando, Fort Myers, Tampa, Miami and Sarasota in Florida, plus Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Cancun.

Elsewhere in Ohio, airlines continue to resume flights suspended during the pandemic.

John Glenn Columbus airport has regained flights on American Eagle to New York LaGuardia Airport and to Boston on Delta Connection.

Spirit will begin service in early June from Columbus to Los Angeles and Pensacola, Florida, while Southwest Airlines will begin service to Myrtle Beach on June 6.

Cleveland Hopkins Airport Director Robert Kennedy said the airport is at 50 percent of the passenger traffic it had in 2019 but expressed optimism that summer travel will boost business.

Hopkins expects to handle between 5.2 million to 5.9 million passengers this year, well below the 10.5 million projected at the beginning of 2020, but better than the 4 million handled last year.

Akron-Canton Airport handled nearly 10,000 passengers during March, a 63 percent drop compared with March 2019, but well better than the 85.3 percent decline in June 2020 compared with June 2019.

Air Service Ticking up at Akron-Canton Airport

Two airlines serving Akron-Canton Airport added additional service this week to their existing routes.

American Eagle is ramping up service to Charlotte to as many as four roundtrips a day and adding another flight to Philadelphia.

United Express added a roundtrip to Chicago O’Hare.

Both carriers had been operating just one roundtrip a day to those destinations for the past several weeks.

Spirit Airlines has boosted its service to Orlando to daily from three times a week.

Airport officials say service is expected to increase further in August when American Eagle resumes serving Chicago O’Hare, New York LaGuardia and Washington Reagan airports.

Delta Airlines and its commuter brand Delta Connection are not expected to resume flying between Akron-Canton and Atlanta until March 2021.

Suspended service by United Express to Houston is slated to return in October and Spirit is expected to resume seasonal service to Tampa and Fort Myers in November.

United Express is projecting launching service to Washington Dulles Airport in August.

Airport CEO Ren Camacho said daily air travel through CAK had dropped to as low as 100 passengers a day compared to the normal 2,000 a day during the depths of the pandemic.

Air travel has been picking up although it is still well below normal summer levels.

Camacho said much of the increase in travel has been leisure travelers with business travel not having picked up as much.

In an unrelated development, Ultimate Air Shuttle plans to resume its service between Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport and Cincinnati Lunken Airport on July 20.

The 42-minute public charter flights operate twice daily on weekdays. It is the only scheduled commercial service at Burke.

The Cleveland-Cincinnati route is the first one bring brought by Ultimate, which is a division of Ultimate JetCharters in North Canton.

Traffic Picking Up at Akron-Canton Airport

Akron-Canton Airport is starting to see passenger traffic pick up and Airport CEO Ren Camacho expects a further growth in average daily traffic in July and August.

Speaking during a virtual Akron Roundtable session last week, Camacho said traffic was so slow during April that what had been a normal average of 2,000 passengers per day plunged to a trickle of about 100 passengers per day.

Comacho said the second phase of a $34 million gate modernization project will be completed by July 13.

Once new gates open in a two-level, 41,600-square-foot concourse, an older gate concourse will be razed.

The airport expects to post a nearly $3 million deficit this year but that will be offset in part by $7.6 million in CARES Act funding.

“It sounds like a lot of money, but it’s over a four-year window,” he said.

In an unrelated development, airport officials said they’ve selected Akron artist Lenny Spengler to design its atrium terrazzo floor as part of the airport’s concourse expansion project.

Spengler will create a tree design with leaves depicting historical images from the region, including the Goodyear Blimp and All-American Soap Box Derby and portraits of LeBron James and Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.

The floor replacement project, expected to cost $150,000, is expected to be completed by November when the gate modernization project will wrap up.

Spengler, who has been an artist for more than 24 years, is the sole proprietor and creative director of Where’s Squiggy Creative LLC, a creative arts agency, and owner and silversmith of Studio Lené, an Akron metalsmith studio.

“A tree rooted in the Akron-Canton area can attribute its flourishing to the diverse collection of people, places and events that have shaped it,” Spengler said. “The people who have helped establish it as a city, the places that have helped define its purpose, and the events that have helped illustrate its image, are all leaves on the tree.”

More than 25 artists submitted designs for the airport’s atrium floor, which were reviewed by a panel of judges from Arts Now, ArtsInStark and the Akron-Canton Airport.

Camacho said the designs were evaluated based on whether they created a “sense of place,” appeared timeless and sparked a conversation.

Spirit Resumes Flying to Akron-Canton Airport

Spirit Airlines has resumed serving the Akron-Canton Airport flying to and from Orlando three days a week.

The carrier’s first flight to CAK was on June 11. Through July 1 Spirit will fly between Akron-Canton and Orlando on Thursday, Friday and Sunday using Airbus 319 equipment.

Spirit’s website shows daily service between CAK and Orlando resuming July 1.

Originally, Spirit had planned to resume serving CAK on July 1 after last flying to the airport on April 6.

The low-cost carrier also has had seasonal service between Akron-Canton and Tampa and Fort Myers.

Those flights typically operate between late fall and spring and do not operate daily.

During the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in April a spokesman for Spirit said the carrier would determine service levels on an airport-by-airport basis but hoped to return to normal capacity as soon as possible.

It has since been reinstating most service to Cleveland Hopkins Airport that was suspended during the pandemic and hopes to be at its pre-pandemic service level to Hopkins by July 1.

Hopkins will also be receiving new service that didn’t exist before the pandemic. Spirit has said it will launch a new route next month between Cleveland and Newark Liberty International Airport, thus providing competition with United Airlines.

On Friday JetBlue said it would launch a new route on Oct. 1 between Cleveland and Fort Myers, a route already flown by Spirit, Frontier, United and Southwest airlines.

However, Frontier is the only carrier that operates the Cleveland-Fort Myers route all year.

JetBlue, which currently flies between Cleveland and Boston, had service from Hopkins to Fort Lauderdale before the pandemic began. It has not said when or if that route will be reinstated.

The carrier plans to operate its Cleveland-Fort Myers flights with Airbus 320 aircraft featuring free Internet access and live DirectTV service in addition to complimentary beverages and snacks.

In the meantime, air service at Akron-Canton continues to have lag well behind its pre-pandemic levels with one flight a day to Chicago (O’Hare), Philadelphia and Charlotte.

In an unrelated development, the airport’s president, Ren Camacho, will speak on June 25 at the Akron Roundtable about the challenges the airport faces in getting back air service lost during the pandemic.

The virtual forum is free and the first in a series of online events that the Akron Roundtable is sponsoring.

Go to akronroundtable.org for information on how to participate in the virtual forum.

CAK Seeking Funds to Win Back Air Service

Akron-Canton Airport continues to see just three flights to three destinations and is seeking funding to try to entice airlines to reinstate service suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Airport officials are hoping to get a portion of the $10 million fund established by JobsOhio to regain air service lost during the pandemic.

In recent weeks, CAK has averaged 100 passengers a day on single daily flights to Philadelphia, Charlotte and Chicago (O’Hare).

Airport President Ren Camacho said in a presentation to the Stark County Port Authority that local matching funds are needed in order to tap funds from the JobOhio air service restoration fund.

If Akron-Canton can secure $100,000 in local money it would be matched by $400,000 from JobsOhio.

“Travel is slowly resuming,” Camacho said. “We are limited by capacity at this point.”

Before the pandemic, CAK averaged 25 flights a day. Last year the airport handled 830,000 passengers, an average of more than 2,200 a day.

This year, the Akron-Canton Airport is on a pace to lose $2.9 million although some of that will be offset by $7.6 million from the federal CARES Act.

Camacho wants local chambers of commerce and other economic development groups in the Akron-Canton area to make “airline incentive partnership” donations.

CAK officials are hoping to entice back service to New York (LaGuardia), Atlanta, Houston and Orlando that existed before the pandemic began.

The local and JobsOhio funding could be used for seat and revenue guarantees and marketing dollars.

Thus far no local agency has agreed to donate any funds to CAK.

JobsOhio To Fund Quest for New Airline Service

An Ohio economic develop agency is earmarking $4 million to help the state’s larger airports attract more airline service.

JobsOhio said the money can be used to attract new flights to unserved or underserved markets, including, transatlantic service from Cleveland and Columbus.

Officials said the funds could also benefit the Akron-Canton Airport, which has seen a decline in service in recent years and the Youngstown-Warren Airport, which lost commercial airline service in early 2018.

Ohio airports have been lobbying the Ohio legislature without success in recent years to create a fund to help attract new air service.

They have said Cleveland and Columbus are at a disadvantage compared with Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, which have used public funding to attract service to Europe.

Pittsburgh used $4 million in public funding to lure British Airways into creating a route to London while Indianapolis landed a Delta Air Lines route to Paris with the help of $5.5 million.

Cleveland Hopkins Airport officials say they believe they have lost out on some service opportunities because they lack funding to entice a carrier to launch new service.

Federal law prohibits direct funding of air service, but airports can waive certain fees, provide revenue guarantees and use public money to help airlines pay marketing costs.

Speaking to the City Club of Cleveland, J.P. Nauseef, president and chief investment officer of JobsOhio, said buying airline service is an economic development issue.

Nauseef said he’s heard business leaders throughout the state say, “If we had better air service, we could attract more people. If we had better air service, we could bring another division here. If we had better air service, Ohio would stay on the list with Texas and Florida for business growth.”

Nauseef said details about how the air service fund will operate are still being written, but there is likely to be some local matching funds requirement, including support from the business community.

The Greater Cleveland Partnership offered an undisclosed amount of financial assistance to Wow Air, which flew for six months in 2018 between Cleveland and Reykjavik, Iceland.

That same year Icelandair also provided service on the same route.

Wow Air is now out of business and Icelandair decided not to continue its service to Cleveland into 2019.

Cleveland and Columbus were said by JobsOhio to be two of the largest air travel markets to be without non-stop airline service to Europe.

JobsOhio is a private, nonprofit economic development group that is funded primarily through revenue from liquor sales in the state.

Northeast Ohio Air Service Watch: United Route Restructuring Hits Cleveland, Akron-Canton Airports

Changes are coming to airline service in Northeast Ohio including a restructuring of United Airlines service at Cleveland Hopkins and Akron-Canton airports.

Making headlines this week was the announcement that United will cease flying from Hopkins Airport to New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Reagan Washington National Airport on March 29.

Instead the carrier will boost capacity on flights between Cleveland and Washington Dulles and Newark Liberty airports.

A United spokesman told The Plain Dealer there would be no net decrease in total seats to the New York City and Washington areas, which suggests that United may replace some regional jets now flying those routes with larger aircraft and/or increase the number of flights.

The spokesman also said there would be an increase in premium seats available to travelers flying to Newark and Dulles from Cleveland.

A similar change is coming to Akron-Canton on May 8 when United launches four daily non-stop flights to Dulles.

At the same time it will drop its existing twice daily flights between Newark and Akron-Canton.

In the past two years United has been bolstering its service from Dulles Airport by adding destinations and shifting some connecting flight to Dulles from its Newark hub.

United plans to launch a shuttle service between Reagan National and Newark and some observers think the ending of service from Cleveland to Reagan National is being done to give some of those Washington landing slots to the shuttle operation.

United will offer after late March 12 non-stop destinations from Cleveland. As recently as 2014 it flew to 59 airports from Hopkins.

The Akron-Canton flights to Dulles will operate with regional jet equipment under the United Express brand.

All of United’s flights between Hopkins and Reagan National and LaGuardia are operated with regional jets under the United Express brand.

American and Delta also fly between Cleveland and LaGuardia with regional jet equipment under the American Eagle and Delta Connect brands respectively.

American Eagle also has service between Cleveland and Reagan National.

Other developments affecting air service in Northeast Ohio include the assignment of new 50-seat regional jet aircraft by United Express to its route between Akron-Canton and Chicago O’Hare Airport.

The Bombardier CRJ-500 jets have more legroom and increased storage space.

United said the CRJ-550 is the only regional jet with first-class seating and such amenities as space for every passenger to bring a roller bag on board and a self-serve refreshment center for first class passengers featuring snacks and beverages.

The aircraft also has Wi-Fi service in flight. CRJ-550 aircraft feature 10 first-class, 20 economy-plus and 20 regular economy seats.

A CRJ-550 is now being used on one to two of the four daily roundtrips between O’Hare and Akron-Canton. By late spring all four flights will feature CRJ-550 equipment.

United also flies the CRJ-550 on routes linking Chicago with Cincinnati and Columbus, and between the two Ohio cities and Newark.

Also at Akron-Canton, Delta earlier this month began operating mainline jets on two of its three daily flights to Atlanta.

A late morning flight to Akron-Canton uses a Boeing 717 jet while the late night flight uses a 737. The mid-day flight uses a regional jet.

During the Christmas travel season all of the flights between Akron-Canton and Atlanta had been covered by regional jets.

Spirit Airlines late last year resumed seasonal service between Akron-Canton and Tampa and Fort Myers, Florida.

Those flights, as well as Spirit’s year-around service to Orlando, do not operate daily and use Airbus 319 jets.

Hopkins Airport will see the addition of a new carrier on May 20 when Sun Country Airlines begins flying between Cleveland and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

JetBlue has announced it will increase its service between Cleveland and Boston at an unspecified date in 2020.

United plans to add a weekend flight between Cleveland and Tampa in the spring.

Hopkins Traffic Grew in 7.7% in 1st Half of 2018

Traffic continued to grow at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport during the first half of 2018.

The airport said it served 4.7 million travelers during the period, an increase of 7.7 percent over the same period of 2017.

If that trends holds for the rest of this year, Hopkins will have handled 9.6 million passengers this year, which would be the highest number since 2009, when the former Continental Airlines still had a hub in Cleveland.

That hub closed in 2014, four years after Continental merged with United Arlines.

Airport boarding statistics show that 96 percent of Hopkins’ passengers originate or terminate their trip in Cleveland rather than merely pass through as connecting passengers.

During the first half of this year Hopkins has seen new service by Wow Air and Icelandair to Reykjavik, Iceland, while Delta Airlines added a route to Salt Lake City.

United is increasing service from Hopkins by adding flights to the existing destinations of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston and Orlando.