CheapAir.com, a travel search engine, has now announced the findings of a study comparing airfare prices in several U.S. locations from 2022 to 2023.
Despite the fact that there is not a single U.S. city that has seen a decrease in airfare when compared to the same time period in 2022, the data implies that smaller U.S. cities have been hit the worst.
Although the lowest domestic airfare is up 17% from a year ago on average, customers are facing year-over-year price increases of 10%-35% depending on the precise city they are flying out of.
CheapAir.com looked at 128 million rates for domestic flights leaving from 74 different cities around the United States. The research found that larger departure cities experienced lower average price increases than smaller cities.
In fact, seven of the top 10 airports with the highest documented airfare rises were smaller, regional airports. Bishop International Airport in Flint, Michigan has seen the largest single price increase (35 percent). That’s an average of $130 added to the price of a domestic flight.
The top 10 cities with the largest fare increases in 2023 are as follows:
There has been a 35% growth in the population of Flint, Michigan.
A 32% rise in Akron, Ohio
30 percent growth in Dayton, Ohio
28 percent growth in Greensboro, North Carolina
Increase of 25% in Tucson, Arizona
An increase of 24% in Burbank, California
23 percent growth in Miami, Florida
A rise of 23% was recorded in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
An increase of 22% in Fort Myers, Florida
Increase of 22% in Minneapolis, MN
Bishop International Airport, which is located in Flint, Michigan, is a good example of a little airport in the United States. It handles an average of only 200,000 passengers per year and placed #167 on StratosJets’ list of the 200 busiest airports in the country in 2022.
According to CheapAir.com, smaller airports are hit harder by price hikes than their larger counterparts because they have fewer flights and are served by fewer airlines, and they are also finding it difficult to meet rising demand as more people start flying again in the wake of the pandemic and airlines continue to deal with staffing and equipment shortages.
This pattern is consistent with what was seen in last year’s research, which found that airfare was most expensive in Flint, Akron, Dayton, and Greensboro over the course of a year.
In the meantime, CheapAir.com compiled a list of the major urban airports in the United States that saw the fewest price hikes. Here are the orderly rankings:
Ten percent growth in Manchester, New Hampshire (Boston area).
An rise of 10% in Oakland, California
Ten percent growth in Houston, Texas
New York’s Rochester saw an increase of 11 percent.
Increase of 11% in Hartford, CT
In the city of Syracuse, New York, the rise was 11%.
Newark, New Jersey, saw a rise of 11 percent
Twelve percent growth in Boston, Massachusetts
Twelve percent growth in Albany, New York
In San Francisco, California, the growth rate is 12%.
