For Montana, where air travel often provides the most practical connection to distant family and business opportunities, the cost of a plane ticket can dictate everything from vacation plans to access to medical care. That’s a particular concern for many would-be travelers as the state enters the 2025 holiday season.
Adjusted for inflation, prices for holiday season flights in and out of Montana have declined over the past 10 years, according to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics data on average ticket prices over the final three months of each year. That data indicates commercial airline tickets cost 15% less on average for passengers flying out of Montana’s six busiest airports during the holiday season, roughly in line with a nationwide drop of 17.5%.
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, nominal-dollar ticket prices climbed sharply and remain about 13% higher statewide than they were a decade ago. In Missoula, for example, the average holiday-season ticket rose from $406 in 2015 to $490 in 2024. Adjusted for inflation, however, that 2015 fare would be equivalent to about $541 today.
Similar trends have played out with inflation-adjusted ticket prices at the state’s other large airports.
The data shows that while travelers saw steep price increases in 2021 and 2022 following the dip through the initial stages of the pandemic, inflation-adjusted affordability has improved over time.
The sharpest swings occurred during the pandemic. In 2020, passenger counts were cut in half, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration, and holiday-season fares dropped nearly 25%. Billings, for example, saw its passenger count cut in half and ticket prices fell by nearly 30%
At Montana’s six busiest airports, both demand and ticket prices surged after the pandemic. Passenger travel more than doubled from 2020 to 2022 and ticket prices rose around 37%. By 2022, both travel demand and ticket prices had risen slightly above their 2019 levels.
Bozeman, the state’s busiest airport, experienced the lowest price surge in the post-pandemic period, at 20%. By late 2024, its average fare had fallen from $605 to $461 in 10 years — a nearly 25% decline.
Billings fares dropped 17% from 2015 to 2024, a change airport officials attribute to airlines using larger aircraft, filling more seats and paying lower fuel prices in recent years. With fuel typically making up more than one-quarter of airlines’ costs, efficiency and fuel price contribute a lot to the price of tickets.
Missoula and Kalispell recorded roughly 15% declines in the cost of flying over the decade. Helena, despite having the highest average fares in the state every year we looked at, posted a 13% drop after inflation.
Great Falls was the outlier. In 2022 it was the only airport with inflation-adjusted fares that were higher than in 2015, up 6%. By 2024, fares had dropped just 3%, or $17 from their 2015 average of $512.
Great Falls International Airport Director John Faulkner cited the area’s stagnant population growth as a major factor that has discouraged airlines from bringing in larger aircraft with a lower per-seat cost. Faulkner said his current focus was attracting ultra-low cost carriers to offer a direct flight to California to “get the environment working and moving again” so more people choose to fly from Great Falls rather than driving three hours to Bozeman in an effort to snag direct flights or lower ticket prices.
The numbers offer little solace to travelers who remember pre-pandemic fares, but they do reflect a broader economic reality: the real cost of air travel has been declining for decades, even as short-term spikes make headlines and strain holiday budgets. The data suggests that despite the turbulence, flying is gradually becoming more affordable — even from Big Sky Country.
Faulkner said airports anchor local economies, supporting hundreds of jobs and shaping a town’s ability to recruit skilled workers like doctors and engineers. He encourages travelers to “shop local” when they can, saying that tools like Google Flights’ alerts can help people find affordable airfare without abandoning their home airport.
“Small towns are all reliant on the outside world,” he said. “To get people to come to your community, you gotta have good air service.”
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