Sun 25 Nov 2007
Posted by Travelman under News
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Be flexible. Consider alternate airports. That’s pretty standard holiday travel advice from travel writers these days, and I include myself among them. But the question isn’t quite as simple as it sounds: You may have to consider different alternate airports for different reasons. Here’s an overview of the question.
What’s an alternative airport? First, let’s get to a definition. An alternate airport is any feasible airport, in either your origin or destination area, other than what you consider to be the primary one. Some alternates are airports offering a wide range of flights but in different parts of the origin or destination metro areas: LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark in the New York area, for example; others are smaller nearby airports with only limited services, such as Long Beach in the Los Angeles area; and still others are in different metro areas in the same region, such as Boston and Providence. Where you look for an alternative airport depends on what sort of air service you need.
More low-fare seats
Especially in holiday seasons, the main reason to look for an alternative airport is to find a better selection of low-priced seats. When traveling to and from major metro areas, that means checking all the big airports in that area.
Most big websites make that easy by offering you an option to select all airports in the (city) area, and listing those airports. But beware of some of the choices offered. In commenting on my recently posted Q&A about alternate airports, online travel expert Robert Cowen reported seeing some alternate airport suggestions, based on mileage, that were totally impractical. One site suggested London, Ontario, as an alternative to Cleveland—about 110 miles, if you could figure out how to drive across Lake Erie; otherwise, about triple that. He had also seen Milwaukee as an alternative to Grand Rapids (Lake Michigan? Who cares?). His suggestions: Display alternates by driving time rather than distance. I agree.
Quirky fare deals
If you’re heading to or from one of the nation’s hubs, such as Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, or Minneapolis, you sometimes find that fares to or from smaller neighboring cities are lower than the central hub. That happens even though the lower fare might involve a connection through the nearby hub. By driving an hour or two, you might be able to cut quite a bit off your airfare. Do not, however, plan on buying a connecting round-trip ticket, but not taking the short connecting flights. If you fail to take the first connecting flight, the airline will cancel the remainder of the entire ticket.
Access to low-fare lines
Low-fare airlines do not serve all of the country’s biggest and busiest airports. And the alternate airports they promote may be some considerable distance away, with poor public transportation.
If you want to fly Southwest to or from the New York metro area, the closest airport is Long Island-MacArthur, with only fair public transportation access to Manhattan; for Boston, it’s Manchester or Providence, both with poor public transport to and from Boston.
Allegiant and Skybus use mainly smaller, out-of-the-way airports, almost all with poor to nonexistent public transportation to the proximate big metro area: Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for Boston; Rockford for Chicago; Stewart Field for New York; Bellingham for Seattle; and such. Some of these fields are more than 80 miles from the main metro area.
Avoiding connections
Just as high fares may discourage flying to and from some big hub airports, avoiding connections may favor their use. Cowen’s comment also pointed out the advantages of nonstop flights-plus-driving for some trips. He routinely travels from Detroit to Tucson, a route with no nonstop flights. He could easily make the trip by connecting through any of several hubs, but each connection typically adds around two hours to his total trip time and increases the odds of missed planes and lost baggage. Instead, he flies nonstop to and from Phoenix, and rents a car for the Phoenix-Tucson legs—saving at least an hour each way.