Why Have Fares at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Gotten So Damn Expensive?

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

MSP Stands for "Mega Spendy Planes"

Over at Twin Cities Business, Adam Platt asks, "Why are Twin Cities airfares so high?"

I'll be honest: I didn't realize airfare costs were super high in the Twin Cities. Platt says he spent nearly $1,000 roundtrip on Delta to both Phoenix and Fort Myers this winter; I just checked, and my last two roundtrip flights to Philly (in December) and LAX (in February) were $366.97 and $502.18, respectively. (Is he booking week of? Flying first class? I myself am a basic economy flier and will be until I die.)

But apparently airfares are soaring, airplane-like, for flights out of MSP, and they've only gotten more expensive since the conflict with Iran. Here's what TCB turned up with a little digging:

TCB looked at nonstop airfares from MSP for a Friday-to-Tuesday roundtrip in April, well after Easter weekend, with a two-week-plus advance purchase. We priced a traditional economy ticket on the network carriers, as a business traveler might, which includes the option to buy an assigned seat plus frequent flyer credit. (A checked bag and aisle or window seat will cost at least $60 on Delta, by and large, while an assigned seat and bag add at least $45 to Sun Country fares.)

It wasn’t long ago that such a search would have exclusively produced fares under $500. Now, it’s hard to find a fare that isn’t over $500.

Kyle Potter, executive editor at Twin Cities-based Thrifty Traveler, tells Platt that Delta used to set prices in competitive markets to match budget airlines like Sun Country. But today, they just kind of... don't.

“It’s competition, or lack thereof.”

No Hope in Twins Territory

Earlier today, at Target Field's new food preview media luncheon, I admired the 1987 and 1991 World Series trophies on display alongside Twins PR man Matt Hodson. "What are the odds we add another one of these this season?" I asked Hodson with a wink. "Well," the good-natured comms pro responded with a sly grin, "In 1987 nobody gave us a chance—anything's possible."

Hodson is among the 4.3% of the Twins fanbase who view 2026 with a sense of hope. That's according to The Athletic's annual MLB Hope-O-Meter, which just placed your Minnesota baseball club at No. 30 among 30 franchises ranked by fan hopefulness. (Last year 52% were hopeful, preceded by 86.3% in '24, 91.3% in '23, and 70.1% in '22.) The Hope-O-Meter findings represent findings from a recent survey 11,000+ fans, and, unsurprisingly, the juggernaut L.A. Dodgers top the list with 99.8% optimism.

Elsewhere, in Twins Territory...

"This could prove to be the worst Twins team of all time," predicted an Athletic reader named Ryan. "I’ve never been less optimistic. It feels like doom and gloom at every turn, from ownership on down. At least there’ll be $2 beers and Luke Keaschall!"

We'll drink to that.

Catch our RacketCast preview of 2026 Twins this Thursday with the great hardball writer Aaron Gleeman. There... um, well, jeez... there are certainly slivers of optimism to be heard!

New Data Shows New Ways ICE Reps Lied

Thanks to a variety of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the Deportation Data Project has all kinds of new stats and details on what federal agents got up to during Operation Metro Surge. And, as one might suspect, it also illustrates the current administration's propensity to make up numbers. 

For example, officials boasted that they had arrested over 4,000 “murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members and terrorists” during OMS, which terrorized all of Minnesota for months. Actual data, however, shows that there was about 3,700 arrestees, and most—over 75%—had no criminal history.

“The vast majority were arrested in Minnesota for civil immigration violations,” writes Jon Collins and Kate Martin in their analysis of the data for MPR News. “Some of those arrested with criminal histories or pending criminal charges were taken directly from jails, rather than through targeted enforcement actions, according to the data.”  

MPR also notes that, interestingly, arrests declined after Kristi Noem, U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary at the time, promised she would be sending at least a hundred more agents to the state after the killing of Renee Good. (Kinda related: You see Tuesday's salacious bombshell about Noem's husband? My goodness...) And while Trump talked up a racist storm about ICE coming to Minnesota for Somali immigrants, arrests tapped out at 106. Ecuardorians (1,026) and Mexicans (885) were detained at a much higher frequency.

"Like I Was Drowning": Man Tackled in DHS Assault on Roosevelt Speaks

On January 7, the same day that an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in south Minneapolis, border patrol agents overran Roosevelt High School and tackled 28-year-old Quentin Williams, who works in educational support at the school. 

“I felt like I was drowning,” Williams tells Sahan Journal's Becky Z. Dernbach in his first interview since the incident. Williams, known as Mr. Q to the students, says he thought immediately of George Floyd when five or six agents jumped him and pinned him down. “If they were on me two seconds longer I feel like I would be dead,” he wrote in his journal that evening. 

Williams was originally charged with assaulting a federal law enforcement officer, a felony, but this was downgraded to a misdemeanor charge and then dropped entirely. He's was relieved, he tells Dernbach, but still frustrated at the lack of accountability: "The charge was dismissed, but I know I didn’t do anything in the first place.”