With airfare prices being sky high, it's always nice to find a great deal. To help travelers find deals, Cheapflights.com has revealed a list of the cheapest airports in America.
Cheapflights.com, a website that helps travelers find flight deals, did a survey to find the cheapest airports in the country. In their 2012 Airport Affordability Index, the website ranked the 101 most popular US airports based on their airfare affordability. The findings were based on average airfares that users found while searching for flight deals to the most popular domestic and international destinations during the month of June.
There are certain trends within the findings. The top 10 most affordable airports are all small market airports that people don't usually consider when planning trips. However travelers may want to consider these alternative airports as options as their airfares are the cheapest. For instance, a flight to Honolulu, Hawaii cost $150 when flying out of Oakland International Airport rather than the more popular San Francisco International Airport in California.
"Each year our Airport Affordability Index serves as a reminder that travelers have options and that saving money can be as simple as driving an hour or two at one end of a flight or the other," said Lauren Sullivan, editor at Cheaflights.com "As always, we view this report as a baseline for people looking to see how their favorite airports stack up and as a reminder for them to do their homework, compare options and act quickly when they find a deal."
This is the third time the survey was conducted. Compared to last year, there were minor differences in which airports are cheapest. The third cheapest airport, Fresno Air Terminal, CA, ranked 26th last year. The ninth cheapest airport Chicago Midway, IL jumped up from being 40th last year. Dallas Love Field and Kansas City International dropped more than 50 places in the ranking. The drastic changes may be because airfares are very local and fluctuate regularly.
You might find, as our users did, that the average airfare to Honolulu is $150 less from Oakland than San Francisco, or that a flight from Fresno to Paris averages $125 less than it does out of San Francisco.
Out of Cheapflights.com most-searched airports, these are the top 10 with the lowest average round-trip airfare, including taxes, for travel to the most popular destinations:
Rank Airport Average Airfare
1 Bob Hope Airport, CA (BUR) $221
2 Long Beach (Daugherty Field), CA (LGB) $250
3 Fresno Air Terminal, CA (FAT) $290
4 Harrisburg International, PA (MDT) $304
5 Lehigh Valley, PA (ABE) $307
6 John Wayne/Orange County, CA (SNA) $316
7 White Plains, NY (HPN) $324
8 Metropolitan Oakland International, CA(OAK)$330
9 Chicago Midway, IL (MDW) $339
10 Bellingham International, WA (BLI) $342
