For the first time in two decades, United Airlines and its predecessor Continental Airlines have been bumped out of the top airline position at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE). But don’t expect this to last for more than a fortnight or so…
Frontier Overtakes United Airlines In Cleveland
Frontier Airlines is now the “top” carrier at CLE, bumping out United Airlines thanks to its robust summer schedule. Frontier has added dozens of routes to Cleveland over the last several weeks in anticipation of the peak summer travel season. Last month, Frontier served 221,434 of those travelers, while United served 217,898 (American Airlines was a distant third at 181,340 passengers).
This marks a seismic change at Cleveland, where Continental Airlines operated a major hub for many years. In fact, even after Continental merged with United Airlines in 2010, the airport remained a United hub until 2014. And while CLE has lost its hub status for United, the Chicago-based carrier still treats Cleveland as a focus city, operating a number of direct, non-hub-to-hub routes.
But Frontier Airlines will dramatically scale back flying starting next month, with plans to eliminate service to:
- Charleston (CHS)
- Jacksonville (JAX)
- Myrtle Beach (MYR)
- New Orleans (MSY)
- Pensacola (PNS)
- Savannah (SAV)
Frontier calls these routes “seasonal” and has not yet determined whether any or all of them will return next summer.
Even so, Frontier maintains a pilot base in CLE and will continue flights on new routes including Austin, New York City, and Salt Lake City.
But with the schedule reduction, it does appear United Airlines will again take the top spot at CLE.
Even with all the traffic additions from Frontier, the airline still boasts lower passenger counts than it did in 2008 at the heydey of the Continental hub.
Have you flown one of the new Frontier routes from Cleveland?
image: Bill Abbott
Every Frontier flight that goes from Cleveland is a money loser. The airline is awash in loss leader flights. Cleveland will be doing just fine when the pull back from this airline happens. We need to have airlines that we can count on over the longer time frame.
Proof/Receipts??
Every Frontier flight that goes from Cleveland is a money loser.
Those flights end August 11th and August 12th.
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But Frontier Airlines will dramatically scale back flying in September, with plans to eliminate service to:
If Cleveland’s economy was in good shape, UAL would not de-hubbed CLE a decade ago. Moreover, Cleveland population has been slowly shrinking in the last two decades. If Frontier wants to build up service from CLE, I wish him good luck. Nearby Columbus, Ohio has a stronger economy and growing population. This should be the target ULCC concentrate their effort.
Team CBUS here. It’s not just the population but the number of air passengers at the airports that matters. CLE still has more passengers (about 9.9 million/year ending 2023) than CMH & LCK combined or CVG – both about 8.7 million. Spirit, Frontier and Allegiant already serve Columbus.
Frontier is dropping CMH to Orlando, New Orleans and Philadelphia too. Could also be seasonal or whatever.
That’s just Frontier being Frontier – start and stop service quickly. I don’t understand how they expected to compete against American in Philadelphia with 3x/week service vs. 42x/week. Or worse years ago they flew Columbus to Trenton also 3x/week and called it the Philadelphia area.
Hasn’t Delta announced a Sky Club for Columbus?
Before the pandemic, I used to make an occasional connection in Columbus. You could find first-class deals doing XXX—New York LGA/JFK—Columbus—Detroit—XXX. Same for Pittsburgh. Of course, neither airport was (or is) setup for Delta connections. Sometimes a bag would come out at baggage claim and not make the connecting flight. Same for Dallas, which every now and again pops up as a connecting airport on a cheap Delta airfare. I still see Pittsburgh every now again come up on Google Flights and ITA but not Columbus.
Columbus is huge partly because of the university — those students count in the census but don’t live there full-time — and partly because of suburban annexation. Cleveland can’t get physically bigger due to cities around it that can’t be annexed.
I’ll take Cleveland over Columbus any day. Better art museum, you have the Lake Erie waterfront, and you’re a short(ish) drive from Detroit, Pittsburgh and even Buffalo/Ontario, Canada.
I’m shocked that some of the Frontier routes are seasonal. Who flies Cleveland to Florida or Savannah in the summer? I would think Cleveland-Savannah and Cleveland-Florida would be more popular in the winter and spring.