One way or another, I need to get to Alaska.
I have family who live near Juneau in southeast Alaska, and the stars have finally aligned for my first ever journey later in June.
This will be my first flight since I moved to Milwaukee from La Crosse just a few months ago. Before that move, I tended to avoid flying because it required a lengthy drive to the Twin Cities.
I imagine many Milwaukee residents ask themselves the same question I had while making plans for my trip: Should I fly out of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago or Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee?
In general, O’Hare has cheaper airfare. It depends on the time of year, but the difference can be between $40 and $200 for a longer flight like mine.
For my flight, the cost out of Milwaukee was $688. The same trip out of Chicago was $537. Spoiler alert: I booked my flight from Chicago two months ago.
But like many consumers in this tight economy, I’m still questioning whether I made the right choice. After crunching some numbers, I’m left wishing I had made Milwaukee’s airport work instead.
Milwaukee’s airport can save time, money with proper planning
The divide comes down to time and money, as many things do. The convenience of living in Milwaukee and flying out of Milwaukee is a legitimate upside for Mitchell.
These are my options as a Milwaukee resident:
A maximum cost of $89 seems favorable compared to a minimum one-and-a-half hours of driving and other costs associated with getting to Chicago.
For comparison, here are my options for getting to O’Hare:
This trip came up quickly and I couldn’t hit the sweet spot for cheapest airfares at either airport. Given the $150 difference in flights, most commutes to Chicago still save me money under the circumstances.
But if I had more foresight and were traveling at a different time of the year, I would have picked Milwaukee.
While I wouldn’t necessarily find an Alaskan fall or winter all that pleasant, let’s say I waited until October instead. From O’Hare, it would be a $490 flight. Out of Mitchell, it would be $530.
That’s still cheaper airfare out of O’Hare, but every commute option to Chicago pushes the bill higher than flying out of Mitchell. Even after cost, when time is factored in it becomes an easy choice to go to Mitchell instead of a long, costly commute to and from Chicago.
Passengers are also more vulnerable to long TSA wait times, cancellations and general major airport hub headaches at O’Hare, communications coordinator for Mitchell International Tajma Hall reported.
“I don’t know about you, but I really take pleasure in being home right away when I get back to Mitchell,” she added.
Am I part of the problem against better Milwaukee service?
There is one other hiccup in comparing tickets to Alaska: Milwaukee does not have direct flights to Alaska. Chicago has three through Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines.
The difference between direct flights and connections can be about three hours in layovers from the Midwest to Alaska. I am an anxious person and stand among the 31% of Midwest fliers who fear missing a connecting flight. The time spent waiting on connections is also tough to grapple with on any trip.
As one of my favorite songs, “Rae Street” by Courtney Barnett, goes: “Time is money and money is no man’s friend.”
Statistically, I’m not alone on this specific Mitchell versus O’Hare comparison either. Milwaukee has 36 nonstop destinations, while Chicago has 180. That’s 144 other flights with the same convenience gap.
Neither airport is to blame for this, however. Airports don’t decide their destinations, the airlines do. The biggest determinant for airlines to add new destinations is airport use. Simply, if an airport is increasing passenger counts, airlines are more likely to add destinations to and from there.
“We would fly everywhere all the time if we could,” Hall told me. “Most other airports of our size don’t have an O’Hare next door they’re competing with.”
That also means the best way to get the destination I want from Mitchell International would have been to fly out of Milwaukee. In my rush to book and lack of appreciation for a backyard airport, I kind of contributed to the very issue I had. Use it or lose it, as Hall puts it.
“We are owned by Milwaukee County, but we are not funded by the County,” Hall explained. “We rely 100% on ticket fares and money spent at our airport. People see airfare as one big general entity, but it isn’t. We’re a local business like any other. The best way to support a local business is to support it with local dollars.”
In fairness, Alaska is one of few domestic destinations that lacks nonstop service from Mitchell. Seattle, New York, Denver, Atlanta and most other major flight hubs have constant flights from Milwaukee.
There are only a handful of airports with direct flights to Alaska, and the only Midwest options are Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul and sometimes Detroit.
Maybe I was simply unlucky with my choice of destination. I’ll take it up with the Alaska bears after visiting the Chicago-soon-to-be-Indiana variety.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: For Milwaukeeans, is it cheaper or more convenient to fly out of Chicago O’Hare or Mitchell?
Reporting by Caden Perry, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Caden Perry, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
