If John F. Kennedy (JFK), Miami (MIA), or Los Angeles (LAX) is your home airport, it's pretty easy to find a cheap flight. But at the much smaller airports all over the U.S. and Canada, an undeniable trend is emerging: Cheap flights from smaller, regional airports are back!
While they are overall less frequent and harder to find, cheap flights from smaller regional airports around the country do, in fact, exist. We search for flight deals from over 200 U.S. and Canadian airports – and yes, that includes your home airport.
As travel demand returned to North America after the pandemic, a lot of the best fares from smaller, regional airports dried up, leaving residents of those places facing the decision to book expensive fares, drive to the nearest big city, or buy positioning flights to get you to where the deals are.
Still, every day, we run thousands of daily searches from Aberdeen (ABR) to Wichita (ICT) to find our subscribers in those cities the best deals from their home airports. And it's not just for trips within the U.S. We have dozens and dozens of examples of flight deals that include smaller U.S. and Canadian cities flying to some of the best destinations the world over.
Here are a few of the best cheap flights we've sent to Thrifty Traveler Premium subscribers just in the last month alone.
Across the Atlantic From Your Hometown
Brush up on your Spanish, residents of Bemidji, Bismarck, Bozeman, and Bristol! Our latest flight deal to Spain (which included nine different Spanish cities) was a huge one and included more than 100 departure cities across the United States.
These sub-$600 roundtrip fares to Spain extended way, way past the hub cities of Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), and New York (JFK, EWR) and across the U.S. – from Albany (ALB) to Burbank (BUR).
Even our subscribers in Hunstville, Alabama (HSV) got in on the action with this cheap, one-stop itinerary through Charlotte (CLT) on the way to the Spanish capital of Madrid (MAD).
Further north in Europe, cheap flights to Ireland can also span coast-to-coast in North America.
Our friends in Columbus (CMH), Indianapolis (IND), Ontario (ONT), and Palm Springs (PSP) all got sub-$600 options to the Emerald Isle for travel this year or next.
My favorite small city on this list was Joplin, Missouri (JLN), which still has great availability to Dublin (DUB) for just $580 roundtrip flying United and its partners.
If you're a Joplin resident, the nearest major airports are St. Louis (STL) or Kansas City (MCI) which are both at least 2.5 hours away by car, and even then you won't find a price as good as this one leaving straight from Joplin.
South America From Flyover Country
We love the practice of booking a positioning flight at Thrifty Traveler. Positioning flights are domestic flights that can take you to the airport where you can find the best flight deal possible. It's a great way to save hundreds on flights, but lately, they haven't been necessary to get to bucket list destinations.
Like Buenos Aires, Argentina (EZE), for instance.
This flight deal included almost every U.S. and Canadian airport with American Airlines service flying to Argentina, and it wasn't just Dallas (DFW) and Miami (MIA).
Our friends in Wichita (ICT) and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre (AVP) both got in on this amazing deal.
Fares to Buenos Aires have been closer to $1,200 or $1,300 roundtrip lately, so these fares are nearly half-off.
The same goes for this flight deal to Santiago, Chile (SCL). While fares have been dropping to Chile lately, it was mostly centered around the major hubs…until now.
This Chile flight deal would have been great if it were just from a few cities, but dozens of them got in on the action!
From Evansville (EVV) to Greensboro (GSO), Santiago was well within reach.
Fun in the Sun From Almost Anywhere
You don't have to fly all the way down to Chile or Argentina to find a deal from your home airport, either. These destinations both featured long, long lists of departure cities, meaning there's a good likelihood that your home airport was included, too.
Panama City, Panama (PTY) might not be on all travelers' lists, but it probably should be. For one, it's an unbelievably thrifty place to travel, where the U.S. dollar goes very, very far.
But look at that photo on the top of our deal above! It's not just a cheap place to be. It's also a mini paradise.
And almost no matter where you live, you can get there for cheap.
Not only were dozens of small-to-mid-sized cities included in the deal, but the cheapest fare was for our friends in Des Moines (DSM)!
This was a sweet deal that we know a ton of our subscribers booked this year. Hopefully, they're sitting on a beach sipping a cheap drink and not reading this post.
That's also the dream for our subscribers who booked this Cancún (CUN) deal we sent last week.
This was one of the biggest lists of cities we've ever seen flying to Cancún, helping subscribers from coast to coast get to the Yucatan Peninsula.
This was the fare our subscribers in Charleston, West Virginia (CRW) saw.
And you don't have to be out east to make it work, either! Omaha, Nebraska (OMA) got in on the action with a $382 roundtrip fare to the beach, too.
Caribbean Favorites From All Over the U.S.
What we have here is a trend! Tons of smaller, regional airports across the U.S. and Canada with really cheap service to some of our favorite destinations, and we're not even done yet.
We hear from subscribers all the time who want to go to the Virgin Islands. Well, here you go…
You can fly nonstop from MIA and JFK to the Virgin Islands, sure, but what if you're based in, say, Roanoke, Virginia (ROA)?
Or perhaps, Greenville, South Carolina (GSP)?
Either one of those airports offered some sweet, one-stop service to St. Croix (STX) so you can spend some time in paradise no matter where you are.
One destination we've been crazy about lately is Cuba, and that's for a number of reasons.
For one, it's easier than ever to travel there legally as an American if you follow seven easy steps to traveling to Cuba. But also, the flight deals to Havana (HAV) have been abundant lately. And, once again, we're not just talking about cheap flights from Fort Lauderdale and Houston, either.
Bangor, Maine (BGR) isn't exactly a cheap flights hot spot, but this fare is bonkers. It's probably more expensive for Bangor residents to fly to New York than it is to fly to Havana with this fare!
But this deal extended west, too, including a bunch of airports in the Great Plains like Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (OKC) for instance! Both of these fares were at least half-off what we are used to seeing down to Havana, too.
Both of these fares were a boon for subscribers near non-hub airports, and we are confident that the hits are going to keep coming!
Bottom Line
Just because you don't live near a major international airport, doesn't mean you can't get major savings on your next flight to some of the best destinations on the planet.
There's an undeniable trend in airfare right now: Smaller, regional airports are seeing lower, better fares after years of high fares.
Join Thrifty Traveler Premium and get instant notification of the next flight deals we find for you.
Any change you’ll add Santa Rosa CA (STS) to you list or are we too small. I haven’t seen our airport listed on any notices
Hi Jerry, we’d be happy to add STS to our list! When you subscribe, shoot us a reply to the Welcome email and we’ll add it 🙂 We’d definitely recommend adding other nearby airports to your flight deal preferences, just to be sure you don’t miss out on any! https://thriftytraveler.com/premium