Despite Dane County Airport Being Labeled ‘Most Expensive’ in Top 100, Travelers See Its Benefits

Nov. 27—It was more expensive for Jackie and Verne Minor to fly to Madison this year to see their daughter for Thanksgiving than it normally is.

In years past, it would cost between $300 and $400 for two round-trip tickets from their home in Dallas, Texas, to Dane County Regional Airport — but this year, it was between $500 and $600, Jackie said.

The couple travels often for work, so they've seen airline prices go up everywhere, but flying into Madison offers them convenience and other travel trade-offs, even as Dane County Regional Airport was ranked as the most expensive in the country out of the top 100 airports.

Being with family during the holidays outweighed the increased cost for the Minors.

"Our daughter couldn't come to us, so that's why we came," Jackie said.

Dane County Regional Airport was ranked earlier this month as the most expensive airport to fly out of, based on a study of second-quarter 2022 airline prices by Smart Asset. The rankings included the 100 airports with the largest volume of domestic passengers in 2021.

Dane County had the highest average ticket fare of $526. Overall, airline prices increased nationwide by 21% between the first and second quarters of 2022, with the average cost of a flight increasing from $328 to $397.

Washington Dulles International Airport also had an average fare of $526 and Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport was third at $503. Airports on the West Coast tended to see larger dollar increases when it came to ticket prices.

Cost increases for airline flights are outpacing inflation as airlines recover from decreased volume from the pandemic, with around 15% fewer flights happening compared to 2019. Staffing shortages and crude oil prices factor in, too, as the price of globally traded crude oil reached $120 a barrel earlier this year due in large part to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Michael Riechers, Dane County Regional Airport director of marketing and communications, said the airport has no control over ticket prices — those are set by the airlines that operate there. Most of the airports featured on the most-expensive list are mid-size, like Madison, Riechers said, as larger airports with more volume are able to keep costs lower.

Riechers compared the role of the airport to that of a mall — it facilitates the space for a store, but has no control over what a company might charge for the price of goods purchased there.

"In a very layman way, the airport is a landlord, all of the airlines are tenants and they pay rent," he said.

Dane County Regional Airport works to keep prices lower by balancing "legacy" airlines, such as American and Delta, with lower-cost carriers such as Frontier and Spirit. Having that competition is good for consumers, Riechers said, but those partnerships take years to develop.

The increased costs didn't hit Laura Grafflin, of Coppell, Texas, since she used airline mileage points to subsidize ticket prices for herself and her two teenage children. She only paid for taxes after cashing in 150,000 points for all three tickets.

"It was crazy, it was like $600 for coach," said Grafflin, who came to see her mother in Appleton for Thanksgiving. "We went to Madison because Milwaukee and Green Bay were too much."

Even with the higher prices, Dane County Regional Airport is still the preferred way to fly for Alex Courville, of Dallas, Texas. Lines at check-in stretched no longer than a half-dozen people on Saturday afternoon. He and his wife, Alexis Barge, spent Thanksgiving with friends and toured their printing plant.

It cost them $332 a seat to fly home from Madison, about $100 more than flying from Texas to O'Hare International Airport earlier this week. To fly out of Stevens Point, near where their friends live, would have cost them about $1,000 a ticket with layovers in Georgia and Arizona.

"This airport is my kind of airport," Courville said. "It's nice and small, and not very crowded, even on a Saturday after Thanksgiving."

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