It’s been a rough summer for air travel. But for some, the trip to or from O’Hare is just as frustrating. | State and Regional

He eventually settled on a $64 Uber ride from O’Hare to St. Charles.

“That’s it. It’s 64 bucks,” said Wright, a business strategist from Virginia, relieved that it wasn’t more expensive.

For flyers like Wright, contending with busy airports this summer and dodging airline cancellations and delays is only part of the journey. They must also get to and from the airport, navigating ride-share or taxi prices, CTA service or parking.

Amid rising living costs, travelers who choose ride-shares might be facing some sticker shock. At the start of the summer travel season, the average cost of rides between Chicago and the areas around O’Hare or Midway airports reached or tied their highest prices since the city began collecting data in 2018.

The average cost of Chicago rides to the census tract covering O’Hare broke $60 in May and June, reaching a high of $60.56 in June, city data shows. A year earlier, the average cost was $55.33.

At Midway, the average cost of Chicago rides to the airport’s census tract was $53.56 in June, the most recent month for which city data is available — about a dollar more than a year earlier, and nearly the same as the average price in July 2021.

The prices largely comes down to a labor shortage, said Joseph Schofer, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering and a transportation expert at Northwestern University. Gas prices might be playing a role but rising ride-share costs predate the gas-price leap, he said.

“The risk and the challenge and the difficulty of doing these driving jobs is such that a significant number of people have decided, ‘this doesn’t work for me,’ ” he said. “And so you have a shortage, and you have uncertainties.”

Drivers must weigh the possibility of crime, COVID-19 and the uncertainty of how much their next fare will be and when it will come, he said. And that uncertainty can translate to passengers too.

On a Friday night in June, Schofer checked his Uber app after he landed at O’Hare and the price of a trip to his north suburban home was around $85. He checked again minutes later, after getting off the plane and walking through the terminal, and the price was closer to $40, he recalled.

Schofer said he has also sometimes faced challenges getting a taxi from his home to O’Hare. Taxi drivers, too, face the same challenges as ride-share drivers, sitting at the airport and hoping their next fare makes up for the time spent waiting, he said.

Taxi prices don’t always fluctuate the same way ride-shares do. For cabs licensed by the city of Chicago, those hailed at a cab stand at the airport must activate their meter, and charge no more than the meter or meter-and-a-half, depending on the destination. City cabs hailed via an app can offer dynamic upfront pricing, including prices above the metered rate.

But some travelers are reaching their limits on what they’ll pay to get to or from the airport, whether taxi or ride-share.

“I won’t pay $50 for a ride,” said Stanley Pierre, a 29-year-old truck driver in town from Miami to pick up his truck.

“I mean, it’s supposed to be cheaper than a taxi, right?” asked Stanley, a former Uber driver. “The whole point was to make it more affordable for riders taking ride share … $50 would be a taxi ride.”

Koray Yesilli, who arrived to welcome his visiting brother and planned to take ride-share back to the city also had a limit on what he was willing to spend on a trip.

“If it was $75 to $100 from here to Lakeview, I wouldn’t pay it!” he said.