Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

The Street

Samanda Dorger

The Cheapest and Most Expensive U.S. Airports

ND (Geopolitical Entity) Florida New York Los Angeles

The bargain-basement airfares of the past couple of years are over, and to find a cheaper flight, you’re going to have to work all the angles.

Airfares rose 18.6% between March and April, thanks to pent-up demand, fewer flights due to staffing shortages, and higher fuel costs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Most airfare search sites let you plug in multiple airports, so don’t just default to the largest or closest one. Prices vary between the big commercial hubs, and you can often find a cheaper or quicker option nearby.

To find the cheapest U.S. airports, NetCredit, an online personal loan provider for underserved consumers, used data on domestic airline itinerary fares from the Bureau of Transport and factored in average wages in states and metros from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If you’re headed to a place with multiple airports, like New York or Los Angeles, there are good cheap alternatives. For example, flying domestically from Long Beach airport will cost you, on average, $252.07. The Long Beach airport is a 20-minute drive from LAX, where the average cost of flying domestically is $314.67. And for Hawaii’s big island, it turns out Hilo has average fares of $182.87, while across the island, Kona is more expensive at $277.62.

Atlantic City tops the list as the cheapest airport, which is mainly served by “ultra low fare” airline Spirit (SAVE). By state, airports in Florida turn up most in the list.

According to NetCredit's study, these are the cheapest and most expensive U.S. airports.