help with airline for "yellowstone" trip

[buzz2400]

It is going to be my parents 50th anniversary. My father desperately wants to do wyoming/montana, etc however my mother has early state dementia. So I came up with this brilliant idea. My son will drive them out (from CT) and do Mt Rushmore and then fly home. My father will continue the trip for a about a week (He has a hotel reservation end of august so that he could do some horseback riding/bbq at Roosevelt Lodge at Yellowstone. I will then fly out and continue driving them. This way there will be four eyes watching my mom for most of the time and my father will be able to roam as he pleases.

Now my question is for those who know the area and the airports: which airport would be the cheapest to fly my son back from. I did a search for him to fly back from cody and he has to do three connecting flights and it takes over 8 hours. Any suggestions. It looks like united and delta fly back to salt lake city or denver so I am thinking maybe flying to there and then he can take southwest back to bradley airport in hartford (our preferred airport).

 

[Thresa9]

Check Bozeman or Billings they are usually cheaper then Cody and have much better schedules. You can sometimes get a deal out of Jackson which is right in the Grand Tetons

 

[DVCTX]

I would check out Jackson Hole. I know that American, Delta, Frontier and United fly their mainline planes, not commuter, into Jackson from their major hubs.

In my case I prefer the comfort of the mainline planes over the commuters. Also the sight of the Tetons immediately to the West of the airport is awesome.

 

[GraysMom]

We are going to Big Sky, MT/Yellowstone this summer as well. We checked in to Jackson Hole but the cost of a rental car (actually 2 SUVs to fit the 10 of us and our luggage) was ridiculously higher than at Bozeman, so that's what we went with. We leave from Philly and have a layover in Detroit before heading to Bozeman. Praying we don't have any issues and get out of Detroit on time. That is one place I do NOT want to have to spend the night!

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

When we went to Yellowstone, we flew in and out of Jackson Hole.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

It is going to be my parents 50th anniversary. My father desperately wants to do wyoming/montana, etc however my mother has early state dementia. So I came up with this brilliant idea. My son will drive them out (from CT) and do Mt Rushmore and then fly home. My father will continue the trip for a about a week (He has a hotel reservation end of august so that he could do some horseback riding/bbq at Roosevelt Lodge at Yellowstone. I will then fly out and continue driving them. This way there will be four eyes watching my mom for most of the time and my father will be able to roam as he pleases.

Now my question is for those who know the area and the airports: which airport would be the cheapest to fly my son back from. I did a search for him to fly back from cody and he has to do three connecting flights and it takes over 8 hours. Any suggestions. It looks like united and delta fly back to salt lake city or denver so I am thinking maybe flying to there and then he can take southwest back to bradley airport in hartford (our preferred airport).

Mt Rushmore is quite a ways from Cody. Is there anything decent out of Rapid City?

 

[hsmamato2]

I'd check the airports in SD first, or perhaps Denver? Those seemed the cheapest....

 

[malibuconlee]

It will be a good drive for your dad from The Black Hills to Yellowstone. 8 hours according to Google maps.

I would suggest if grandpa is OK with that your son fly out of Rapid City, SD. From there he will have to connect in either Minneapolis or Denver. At least that's how it was when we lived in the state 10 years ago.

Otherwise, yep, welcome to small town America! Where it costs much more to fly and takes much longer with connections

Cody or Jackson Hole would be my next suggestions to look at. Denver is too far out of the way IMO.

 

[jeeperwy]

We live in Wyoming and you don't have a lot of choice! At least not reasonably priced choices!! If your son wants to stop driving in SD then Rapid City is your best bet for him. It wont be cheap though. The closest Southwest flies to is Denver. If he/you goes to Yellowstone then I would suggest Billings, MT. You can fly from Jackson but it's really hard to get a decent price in the summer (or winter for that matter!). Otherwise someone is going to have to drive quite a bit out of the way to get to any other airports. We live in Casper, but we only have flights to Denver or Salt Lake City from here and we are about 6 hours from Jackson about 4 from Cody. If you have any other questions, I would be happy to help you.

Good luck!
Kari

P.S. It really is beautiful in that part of the state, but not so beautiful last week when we had snow!

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Check out Southwest, Delta, Jet Blue into SLC ~ I'm 40 minutes from that airport and Yellowstone, Teton are within a couple hours.

 

[buzz2400]

thanks for all the replies. It gives me a better idea on how to book the flight.

 

[wiigirl]

When we went to Yellowstone, we flew in and out of Jackson Hole.

 

[angierae]

We are going to Big Sky, MT/Yellowstone this summer as well. We checked in to Jackson Hole but the cost of a rental car (actually 2 SUVs to fit the 10 of us and our luggage) was ridiculously higher than at Bozeman, so that's what we went with. We leave from Philly and have a layover in Detroit before heading to Bozeman. Praying we don't have any issues and get out of Detroit on time. That is one place I do NOT want to have to spend the night!

The area around the "Detroit" airport is actually Romulus, MI, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that area. There are hotels from the very expensive to the inexpensive (we're partial to the LaQuinta for when we have early morning flights, plus they provide a week of parking if you stay there) and you don't have anything to worry about, safety wise.