Delta, Frontier Airlines Show Biggest Growth at Cleveland Hopkins Airport in 2019

CLEVELAND — The mix of airlines operating at Cleveland Hopkins continues to evolve, six years after United Airlines pulled its hub from the airport. While still the dominant carrier, United makes up much less traffic at Hopkins than it did even two years ago.

Delta Air Lines is now the second largest carrier at Cleveland Hopkins, and Frontier Airlines is the fastest growing.

Year-end figures from the airport reveal which carriers are expanding, and which ones are retracting.

United Airlines, which grew a modest 1.7% in Cleveland last year, now makes up just 25% of the traffic at the airport — down from more than 60% six years ago.

Airline analyst Seth Kaplan said Hopkins is following a predictable pattern of airports that lose hubs, a pattern he referred to as “Armageddon and rebound” — a bottoming out and then a gradual rebuilding of service.

Fares come down as competition increases, but the list of nonstop destinations never fully recovers.

Robert Kennedy, airport director, said Hopkins has rebounded more quickly than expected.

“Right now, with our diversification of carriers, it puts us in a great spot,” he said. When one airline pulls out of a market, another is often able to fill the gap.

Kennedy said the airport is working to add capacity — either in additional flights or larger airplanes — to New York LaGuardia and Reagan National in Washington, D.C., after United announced last week that it would stop flying to those airports in late March. The two airports are among just a handful of non-hub destinations that United has kept on its roster since downsizing in Cleveland in 2014. United frequent fliers, in particular, are unhappy about the pullout, although both airports are served by other carriers from Cleveland.

Meanwhile, Hopkins continues to work on filling gaps that remain from United’s pullback. Kansas City remains the largest unserved market from Cleveland, according to Kennedy. Seattle is underserved, as well, with just seasonal, non-daily service from Frontier Airlines.

“We need more West Coast service in general,” said Kennedy.

Transatlantic service also remains a priority. “We’ve got the numbers, the marketplace has the numbers,” he said. “The near-term threat to us and other airports our size is the lack of aircraft and crews.”

Still, he said, “I’m confident we’ll get it. Heck, we got Icelandiar and Wow to try us out.”

Both Icelandic carriers pulled out of Cleveland after less than a full year of flying in 2018 — Icelandair because its aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max 8 was grounded (and remains grounded) after two fatal crashes; Wow because of financial problems. Wow eventually went out of business.

Despite numerous challenges, including the Max grounding, traffic at Hopkins was up 4% in 2019. The airport welcomed more than 10 million passengers in 2019, the highest number in more than a decade.

The airport is predicting additional growth in 2020, adding perhaps another 500,000 to 600,000 seats, for another year of 4-5% growth.

But not all carriers had great years: Southwest Airlines flew fewer passengers into and out of Cleveland in 2019, at least partly because of the grounding of the Max 8, which Southwest relies on more than any other U.S. carrier. Allegiant Air also saw a decline in Cleveland traffic.

Kaplan, formerly with Airline Weekly, said Memphis International Airport offers a story similar to Cleveland’s.

At about the same time Cleveland lost its United hub, Memphis was cut from Delta’s roster of hubs, following the merger of Delta and Northwest airlines. Memphis’ traffic bottomed out in 2015, a year after Cleveland’s passenger numbers hit bottom. Since then, Memphis’ traffic has rebounded substantially, growing 26%. Cleveland’s traffic is up 32% since 2014.

Meanwhile, the average airfare from Cleveland fell 30% between early 2014 and early 2019; the drop in Memphis, during that same period, was 15%.

Kaplan said he’s not surprised that Delta is filling in some of the gaps left by United’s withdrawal from the market, hoping to attract lucrative business travelers to its routes. Delta now flies to nine destinations from Cleveland, up from five in 2013.

“Delta is very strategic about doing those types if things,” said Kaplan. By far the most profitable U.S. airline, he said, “Delta has the wherewithal to take certain risks.”

It’s also the only legacy U.S. carrier that is unaffected by the Boeing Max grounding.

Kennedy said he is looking forward to another strong year in 2020. “We’ve got a couple of announcements to look forward to that will add more capacity here,” said Kennedy. “It’s a little premature to talk about it. Some of them are pretty good.”

Meanwhile, he said, customer satisfaction scores are up, airline fees are down, and the airport recently launched an effort to update its master plan, which is expected to outline a series of capital needs for years to come. “This is a watershed year for us,” he said.

By the numbers: CLE carriers

Here’s a list of the carriers at Cleveland Hopkins, the number of passengers they carried in 2019, percentage change from a year ago, and percentage of overall market.

American, 1.5 million, up 2.9%, 15% of market

Allegiant, 194,000, down 14.3%, 2.4% of market

Delta, 1.7 million, up 11.2%, 16.7% of market

Frontier, 1.2 million, up 25.9%, 12.3% of market

JetBlue, 279,000, up 4.7%, 2.8% of market

Southwest, 1.58 million, down 5.1%, 15.7% of market

Spirit, 924,000, up 7.8%, 9.2% of market

United, 2.56 million, up 1.7%, 25.4% of market

Air Canada, 85,000, up 1.2%, 0.9% of market

Total: 10.04 million passengers, up 4.13%

Source: Cleveland Hopkins International Airport

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