Spirit Airlines announced today that they will take on United with daily nonstop service between Cleveland and Newark starting on July 1st.
Once upon a time passengers in Northeast Ohio could take one of 3 daily Airtran flights nonstop between Akron and LaGuardia for $50 or so. I took the flight all the time and got upgraded to business class for free every time as a lifetime Airtran elite member.
Alas, Southwest bought Airtran for no real reason other than they didn’t like Airtran’s snarky ads.
Shortly thereafter, Southwest ditched Airtran’s massive 717 fleet and abandoned Airtran’s small hub operation in Akron/Canton as they no longer had a plane that made sense for that market. That made flying between Northeast Ohio and NYC absurdly expensive.
The US DoT said that last Q1 some 1,140 daily passengers paid an average of $458 round-trip to fly the 400 miles between Cleveland and NYC, with United getting an average of $494 and American getting $394.
It’s a route that only makes sense to fly if you’re using miles. I typically use 6.5K Avianca Lifemiles to fly United or 7.5K BA Avios to fly American.
When I booked a flight to NYC in February, the cheapest option was $992:
But I was able to use 6.5K Avianca Lifemiles instead.
With Spirit’s announcement today, the bottom fell out of the CLE-NYC market as airlines rushed to compete with $49 one-way fares. As Google notes, prices are $106 less than than the least expensive flights that they would expect:
The goal of course is to keep prices low until Spirit is forced to abandon ship, at which point prices will skyrocket once again. And it will probably work unless people make a concerted effort to fly Spirit and keep prices low. But who would fly Spirit when you can fly United for less?
Well, at least there will still be miles to use when Spirit cancels the route. Hopefully…
Leave a Reply
49 Comments On "Spirit Will Fly Nonstop Between Cleveland And Newark; American, Delta, And United Fight Back With Cheap Fares!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
who cares about Cleveland
You must be looking for Dudy’s blog. You’ve reached Dan’s blog by mistake.
That cracked me up. Great Response!
I think he mean “Who cares about Cleveland” , as in “Who is on first”.
@yelped great one!
yes and no.
You are right its your blog and you are free to post what you wish but I think it would be naive for anybody to say you don’t consider your followers(customers) when posting posts. After all a king is not a king without subjects to rule over.
With that said I think the majority of your readers don’t really care about Cleveland and therefore unless other cities get same attention/treatment I am not sure why this should deserve post. Perhaps though I may be wrong as maybe you do cover other cities however seems to me more of a Cleveland bias!
Nope, I blog about things that I find interesting. Always have and always will.
If others find them interesting and want to follow, I think that’s great. If not, I wouldn’t expect them to continue following.
as a “frum” site you definitely take into consideration who your audience is?
What is a frum site? Does the blog eat kosher food in the Amazon cloud? It keeps Shabbos I suppose because I don’t write on Shabbos.
I never advertised in frum media or did anything to make the site frum. I assume frum people read the site because we have like minded interests, but that doesn’t mean I write about things I’m not interested in writing about.
For sure geared more as a frum site. For example you post deals on kosher eating deals only. You post deals that are relevant for upcoming events/holidays like non leather footwear before Tisha bav. That’s definitely geared to a “frum” crowd.
Second you say you post on things you find interesting but I would venture to say that even if you yourself did not find something interesting if it would interest many of your followers you would surely post it?
This was actually an interesting read for me, and I never flew to/from CLE nor do I have any plans to fly there.
What a stupid comment!!
I do. We have been paying lots of money and or miles to fly my son back from Telshe Celveland to EWR every off Shabbos. Do the math.. Thanks Dan!
Ha, watch, Dan’s going to start flying Spirit! Moshiach tzeiten
LOL
Isn’t Spirit less if you purchase at the airport counter?
Yup, https://www.dansdeals.com/airfare-deals/domestic-flights/heres-beat-frontier-spirit-allegiant-game-fly-nyc-south-florida-15-way/
Only people who like to be abused, fly Spirit or Frontier.
or united
or AA – ask @dan
United seems to be starting Jun 17, and Spirit about Jun 25
Is there a reason why google shows one price on some flights but chase/amex show higher on same flight & class? Makes hybrid points less effective
Please post an example.
AMEX doesn’t book BE fares.
UA 3414 ewr-dtw on 6/25:
Coach/first
Google- $84/163
Chase- $ 158/237
Interesting, that’s a new one for me.
Try calling?
Cash out with groceries 🙂
why is that new? Doesn’t chase have a right to charge their own fare/points? and don they do that sometimes?
call who chase travel? they would try and match price on google?
Chase uses Expedia’s engine. That’s the price it should match, not Google. If it doesn’t match Expedia then it’s odd. Not sure about Amex.
Anything between Austin Texas and Los Angeles?
Check spirit.com
Argh – my son just graduated college last month – so after 4 years of Newark – Cleveland flights they finally come down in price !
Spirit in the big front seat.
Well worth it!
Why would any one fly in the back for the same price?
How is the back for $49 on United the same price as Spirit’s front seat in this case?
@dan I currently have AA tickets JFK to CLE at 7.5k per way (3 people)for the beginning of Aug.
1) would you think that attractions in Cleveland will be open by then?
2) Is it worth it to cancel those, with the current cancellation leniences, and rebook with Spirit? (I have an AA card that gives a free bag per person
1. Hopefully, but no way to know.
2. You can cancel closer in.
Thank you!
Wow this is amazing! How many flights a day? Is it going to be every single day? I tried searching some random dates on spirit website and got some strange error
anyone have the answer?
Dan can do whatever he wants because it’s his blog
Ahmed. What is your real Jewish name? Avraham? Adam? Aharon?
Thanks for the info! Go back to Cleveland every 3 weeks…pending the end of Covid of course, will continue. Major help here!!
Dan this is great news! I guess I won’t have to worry about skiplagged anymore when flying to New York. Also, I heard a rumor that JetBlue might also get in the mix of direct flights from CLE to New York. Have you heard anything?
I wish.
Probably less likely now.
I’m not from Cleveland and found the post to be very well written and I appreciate the clipped commercial. TY.
If it isn’t clear, this site is meant as a means for Dan to express himself and his deals. Period. He doesn’t need to match your ideals. And he even doesn’t need to be politically correct (if he sees fit). So everyone take a deep breadth and stop psychoanalyzing everything and everyone just because your stuck at home during Covid-19! 🙂
Good to see someone gets it!
Keep up the Gr8 work! Our family loves and appreciates you and your work!
Now I understand all those trips to Hawaii. The fares were lower than to New York. (Even if you had to make connections at EWR.)
Thanks, Dan. Finally, some good aviation news for us in Cleveland. Great to see added competition on the NYC route, especially after United pulled their LGA flight, and now there are multiple airlines in both Newark and LGA. Also, I can only speak from personal experience, but I’ve flown many times on many airlines, and I’ve had far fewer, if any, issues on Spirit and Frontier than with United and others, both onboard and on the ground. Not to mention United’s shameful 16″ seat on many 737’s, which even NK & F9 haven’t stooped to (yet…)
If I still lived in Pittsburgh I would be thrilled to take advantage of this!
Seems like this route is getting killed by spirit, I dont see any flight past 09/06 TO CLE or 09/07 to EWR
NM Just cancelled until November 1