Would you Rather fly out of LAX at noon or SAN at 6pm on a Wednesday?

[jenhelgren]

I have an opportunity to change my flight for no extra cost from LAX to SAN. We had planned on spending a few days in San Diego anyways so the drive from LA down to SAN is not an issue for us. I need some advice-which flight would you chose taking into account traffic, security lines, ease of getting to the terminal and around the airport, etc? The airline will be Southwest. Thanks for all comments in advance!

 

[craigkerstiens]

It's a little of a toss up in that if you're already near LAX that's a bit of a drive just to avoid the mess that is LAX. But if the time to drive really is no issue and you don't mind the later in the day flight in I'd much prefer flying out of SAN personally.

 

[JimMIA]

I agree with Craig -- all things being equal, I'd rather fly from SAN. It's a much smaller, easier to navigate airport. But, I've used LAX many times and have never found it to be a particularly difficult large airport to use.

But there is almost never a situation where all things are really equal. Here are a couple of considerations.

I assume you're renting a car. If either airport would cause turning the car in at a different location than you rented from, you'd better to check to see if there would be any additional cost. I've done that with no extra cost, and I've researched rentals where the difference would have been as much as $400 -- for the same dates, same airports, different rental companies.

The other consideration for me would be whether the entire trip would be more or less convenient. For example, if you're connecting, how are those connections? Would one option have better, more attractive connections, or would one be unreasonably bad?

Lots of thing to consider besides just price and departure time.