How far do you drive to the airport?

[clkelley]

I live 30 minutes from the Birmingham Al airport, but have considered going to the airport in Huntsville that is almost 2 hours away to save a few hundred.

No way you are going to save driving to Huntsville!!!! Huntsville has some of the worst fares around here and NO direct flights to MCO. We often drive to B'ham or Nashville to get better flights, better prices!! I live 5 miles from the Huntsville airport and haven't flown out of there in 3 years cause of the crappy fares and crappy flight times.

 

[Missytara]

I am lucky enough to be about the same distance from BWI and PHL. It is about 1-1/2 hours each way.

I have found that BWI is easier to get to, as well as the fares are always lower, so I have always flown out of BWI.

It was announced earlier in the year, that the civil air terminal in our town at the air base may offer direct flights to Orlando at some point. I would love to do it, but it is the smaller planes and the fares are probably really, really high. It would still be best for me to stick to BWI.

 

[Northern Disney Girl]

We have an international airport 10 mins away from our home and drive 7-8 hours to save up to $1000 on flights.

Me to, I drive almost 8 hours to fly from the states instead of Toronto! I am also 6.5 hours from Toronto also!I save close to $2000 and it is worth the drive!

We are exactly 4 minutes from our local airport but when traveling to the states (WDW) we will drive the 6.5 hrs to Minneapolis to get cheaper airfare! This year, even with gas, hotel, food etc, we are saving OVER $1000 by flying from MSP instead of our airport at home!

 

[Buzz's Buddy]

We're about 30-45 minutes from Philadelphia, a little over an hour to both Newark and Atlantic City and 2 hours from BWI.

Last month we drove the extra distance and flew out of BWI for the first time to save about $200. I'm considering doing it again for our trip to ESPN the weekend, but the savings are closer to $100 so I'm not sure I'll do it this time around.

The drive to Baltimore isn't the problem, it's the drive home because of the return flight which would put us on the road just in time for the evening rush hour.

 

[Darcy03231]

We have an airport about 15 minutes from our house. We once drove 2 hours to a different airport to save $200/pp for a total of $1200 (there were 6 of us flying). It was well worth it.

 

[pooch]

I am 10 min from my home airport and have never paid more than $89 for a non-stop to MCO. Last year it was $69 & in 2006 $54!!!

 

[jensen]

We live in a rural area where we don't think anything of driving several hours to get to the next larger town... and flights out of our airport are never less than $500. So driving 3-5 hours to save $800-$1000 bucks is just part of the vacation for us.

 

[LadyBeBop]

No way you are going to save driving to Huntsville!!!! Huntsville has some of the worst fares around here and NO direct flights to MCO. We often drive to B'ham or Nashville to get better flights, better prices!! I live 5 miles from the Huntsville airport and haven't flown out of there in 3 years cause of the crappy fares and crappy flight times.

I was wondering about that post, because I read somewhere that Huntsville overtook my local airport (Cincinnati) as having the highest fares in the country.

Even though we live 15 minutes from the airport, and both of my daughters used to work at CVG, we have flown out of Indianapolis to save $100 per person (there were four of us).

 

[budbeerlady]

We live an hour from Grand Rapids airport, 4th highest rates in the country...

We drive either 3 hours to Detroit or 2 1/2 to Midway for our rates.

Passengers flying from Huntsville, Ala., pay the highest airfares in the USA, according to the Department of Transportation. Its average fare in the first quarter was $505, and it was the only domestic airport to top the $500 mark.

For the first time in years, Cincinnati is no longer the most expensive airport but remains in second place with an average fare of $446. It registered the biggest year-to-year average fare decrease among all airports, down 16.8%.

Grand Rapids, Mich. ($418); Savannah, Ga. ($405); and Des Moines ($403) round out the top five most expensive airports.

Not surprisingly, airports served by low-cost carriers generally had the lowest fares. The five least expensive were: Long Beach ($207); Oakland ($227); Burbank, Calif. ($231); Dallas Love Field ($231); and Las Vegas ($235).

 

[npmommie]

I am 10 min from my home airport and have never paid more than $89 for a non-stop to MCO. Last year it was $69 & in 2006 $54!!!

where are you getting these fares??
are you talking about bradley? which airline? i have never seen these fares!! I miss all the good ones!
right now sw out of bradley is more expensive than providence and manchester

 

[pooch]

where are you getting these fares??
are you talking about bradley? which airline? i have never seen these fares!! I miss all the good ones!
right now sw out of bradley is more expensive than providence and manchester

Of course we go in Sept so flights are cheaper. This past Sept we flew Delta non-stop down for $69 each (and were upgraded to first class) and $79 on SWA non-stop back. These are pretty average for us. As I said, $54 was the lowest I've ever gotten and $89 was the most.

I will look at both airlines daily starting in early May. The $69 Delta fare only stayed that low for 3 days. You have to watch ALL THE TIME!!!

 

[hsmamato2]

Bradley is always more $$$ than White Plains for us- I've never seen fares drop below 100 each way out of there- but out of WP we routinely get 44-69 each way without any effort! well worth the extra 45 minutes in the car

 

[pooch]

Bradley is always more $$$ than White Plains for us- I've never seen fares drop below 100 each way out of there- but out of WP we routinely get 44-69 each way without any effort! well worth the extra 45 minutes in the car

on when you're flying. I have NEVER paid $100 for a flight out of Bradley. They'd really have to be giving the flight away for me to drive an hr & a half to Providence or more to White Plains or Manchester. When DD and I first became Disney "lifers", I routinely checked those three airports but never found a fare more than a few $ lower than I could get Bradley so I stopped looking elsewhere.

 

[turkeymama]

We have driven as far as 2 hours away to get to the airport. We do it for a couple of reasons. The airports closer to our home are small, regional airports so there are only a couple of carriers with limited flight times, none of which are appealing (we would end up arriving at WDW late evening and departing early in the morning, so essentially spending less time playing and more time traveling). By driving 2 hours, we can fly out of a larger airport on Southwest. We usually arrive to WDW around lunch and depart for home late in the afternoon. That alone is worth it to us.

Also, when we fly Southwest, we can get a direct flight to MCO. That works much better since I don't like flying. The quicker I can get on and off that plane, the better.

Lastly, to get the same flight times that Southwest offers, I would pay twice as much to fly out of our local airport on Delta, for example.

 

[dreamscometrue47]

Three of us are going April school vacation here in Mass. Fares were ridiculously high as soon as they came out (except for the first couple of days on SW, but my vacation hadn't been approved yet by my boss!). Average for the 3 of us out of Logan, Manchester and Providence is about $1800 right now..crazy. We were going to drive, but then I thought about NY, a 4 hour drive to JFK.

We got non-stop flights to Tampa on 4/16, back on 4/24 non-stop for $260 each. Parking offsite is $165 (prepaid, valet), parking I would have had to pay no matter where I flew out of of. Staying at the Tampa Airport Marriott Fri night on points, driving to Orlando in the early am to check in at timeshare. We planned on a rental car anyway and got a full size car from Dollar for about $300 for the week.

My kids think it's hysterical that we are driving to NY to go to FL. I think it's great that I don't HAVE TO DRIVE!!!

So yes, I will drive 4-5 hours to save a good amount of money. It's an adventure!