Personal Finance
How Does Birmingham Stack Up for Air Fares, On-Time Flights?
Find out if your airport is a soaring success — or if that's hardly the case.
UGH! That's bound to be your instant reaction when you see the word "airport," especially if you're a person who has endured today's long lines, pat-downs, baggage fees, surly workers, crowded gate areas, dirty restrooms, weak WiFi, flights delayed, flights cancelled, garbled announcements, bad food at high prices, and annoying monitors booming cable news.
Not to mention confusing fares, packed planes, cramped cabins, smelly seatmates, testy flight attendants, disgusting seat-back trays, bumpy flights, late landings, dragged-out deplaning, missed connections, baggage delays, lost luggage, and aggravatingly long bus rides to your parked car.
Ugh, indeed.
Find out what's happening in Birminghamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Think you’ve had it worse than most air travelers? Find out how your local airport stacks up against others across the U.S. when it comes to ticket prices, on-time arrivals and departures, and more.
Average Air Fares from Birmingham, Alabama
A Delta airliner taking off from an airport into a clear blue sky.
According to the government’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, people flying out of Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International (BHM) are paying an average round-trip fare of $447.87.
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What do you think? Does that seem high to you? Or maybe lower than you've experienced? Remember, that's the average.
The average airline ticket price in the State of Alabama during the third quarter of 2018 was $587.54, the government says.
The national average airline ticket price during the quarter was $444.27.
In Alabama, you'll pay an average 28% more than the national average.
| Region | Airport | Avg. Fare |
|---|---|---|
| U.S.A. | — | $444.27 |
| Alabama | — | $587.54 |
| Birmingham | Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International | $447.87 |
| Huntsville | Huntsville International-Carl T Jones Field | $638.84 |
| Mobile | Mobile Regional | $570.71 |
| Montgomery | Montgomery Regional | $589.85 |
| Dothan | Dothan Regional | $678.35 |
| Muscle Shoals | Northwest Alabama Regional | $605.50 |
On-time performance at BHM
An aerial view of the airport in Newark, New Jersey.
Now let’s see how your airport rates for getting flights in and out on time. And see if your feeling that the place is ALWAYS running behind schedule is accurate.
Of the departures from BHM last year, 81.3% got off on time, and 17% were delayed.
Canceled flights at BHM totalled 283 through October 2018, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says.
Now you know the odds, next time you have a flight to catch.
Where you live, does the airport have some work to do? For comparison, 82.0% of flights at all U.S. airports were on time last year through October and 16.0% were delayed, according to the federal agency.
