Southwest April airfare prices

[Tom3000]

What's going on with these high April airline prices? Southwest wants $657 round trip out of Hartford for mid April. But if we fly out of Long Island NY it would only be $249 for nonstop flights. Haven't been able to convince dw to take a drive to the island yet but I'm not sure if prices will come down that time of year for weekend travel. We are traveling with our 5 year old daughter so we cant take a late flight either. I am hoping there will be some sort of sale in the next few weeks for April travel. Other airlines like Continental and Delta seem to have fairly empty planes with stops, maybe they might go on sale eventually to fill them up.

 

[laughinplace199]

A lot of New England schools have the 3rd week of April off. We fly out of BOS and we book as soon as Jetblue releases their fares. Even then, there are not many bargains around here for school vacation week. Good luck!

 

[Goofygirl17]

We flew SW out of Islip last time and it was great! We took the ferry from Bridgeport. Islip is a nice little airport with friendly staff. The long-term parking was reasonable and close to the terminal. We're flying out of Providence this year because I found a good price but would consider Islip again.

 

[jmartinez1895]

We fly out of Birmingham Al and last April only paid $79 to fly down and $112 to fly back ( each). This last week I was looking to book for April again and it's $229( each) to fly down and a little more to fly back. There is something going on with the prices and I hope that they will lower them before or trip.

 

[TrustedTraveler]

It's all about demand, and laughinplace is right, April school vacations drive up the prices for certain locations.

 

[silmarg]

We plan to fly SWA out of Philly for presidents week in Feb as the schools up here (in NY) are generally off that week and the airfare is 3x more out of JFK, LGA, HPN, EWR, BDL, ISP - you name it... they are all expensive.

If you really want to go down, just expand your horizon. We have flown out of Baltimore before... and we have flown into Tampa and Jacksonville (actually, the Jax flight got cancelled and the airline rebooked us into Orlando).

 

[LSchrow]

We flew SW out of Islip last time and it was great! ..... Islip is a nice little airport with friendly staff. The long-term parking was reasonable and close to the terminal. .

shhhhhh....don't tell the secret. after many, MANY years of traveling out of JFK and LGA we "found" ISP airport. now being at the airport (as well as getting to/fro) is actually a pleasurable experience
we love ISP

 

[kmacht]

I'm not sure if the poster was talking about ISP or White Plains. They only said Long Island. Just one thing to be aware of. If you choose to fly out of White Plains the only parking available is at the airport and they charge around $24 per day (before tax). There are no off airport alternatives or discount for long term parking. That $24 a day could really eat up some savings over going out of hartford seeing how parking offsite at Bradley is in the neighborhood of $5 to $6 per day. Depending on where you live you might also want to look into Providence and Manchester.

Keith

 

[Anal Annie]

We fly out BWI (usually) and are going down for our spring break the last week of March. I found ALL of the airfares came out really high when the airlines released their schedules for spring. Of course, the closer the date was to Easter the worse it was. I decided to change our dates by a couple of days (backed it up) & booked us home on Air Tran on Thurs. April 1 for only $59 (while the next day was 3x as much). I snagged that rate as soon as I saw it. And it wasn't available for long either! I was not happy with their prices going DOWN tho so I waited for SW to release their schedule & booked us going down on SW on Fri. nite for about $70 less than what Air Tran wanted at the time. It was still high tho (I got it for $167 one-way but the cheapest fare now is $294!!) Overall, we're paying approx. twice as much as what we typically pay to fly in the summer. But I found that by playing with my dates a little it helped the flight prices enough to be worth it. This way, we'll go down on Fri. night and then we'll wake up AT DISNEY on Saturday morning! The more I think about it the more I am glad we're not flying during the day & wasting time traveling.

OP - can you play around with your dates at all? I think many of the best fares were offered when the schedules first came out. I would take a late flight if it saved a significant amount on the price. (Your 5 yo will recover.) But I guess it depends how much you are willing to pay vs want to save tho.

 

[Goofygirl17]

I was talking about SW out of Islip. It was great! I'm not sure of your April dates but we're going the 9th-17th. I see fares for as low as $124 per person down and $114 per person back.

Good luck!

 

[Tom3000]

Thanks for all your advice! Sounds like ISP might be the way to go!We are going April 18-24. I checked Providence and Manchester and there prices are no better than Hartford. ISP is still around $249 round trip. I was thinking even if we stay overnight at a hotel at ISP airport the night before and take an early flight out we will still save a LOT of money. I checked into changing the dates a little either way but unless we are willing to travel on Tue,Wed,or Thurs there is little or no savings. Also we are DVC members so our hotel reservations are locked in and we already made our ADRs for the week. Our daughter is 5 and this is the first time we've traveled during a school vacation week. I thought April vacations varied more within school districts as to which weeks were off, but I guess not. It seemed like a good idea at the time we planned the vacation to go that week. Save money on daycare, she wouldn't miss any school,it is a few weeks after Easter. Next time I think we will go back to Disney in October!