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10 Most Expensive Airports in the U.S.
10 Most Expensive Airports in the U.S.During the holiday season air travel normally gets more expensive and this year prices are even higher than usual. But besides the time of the yearn, the price of your flight also varies based on the airport you fly from.
Some U.S. cities have seen flight costs jump at even higher rates than the national average, with increases of more than 50% year over year for the second quarter in some cases. SmartAsset recently conducted a study analyzing airfare prices at the 100 busiest airports is the US, based on 2021 domestic passenger numbers.
10 Most Expensive U.S. Airports
These are the top 10 most expensive airport in the country to fly from:
- Madison, Wisconsin — Dane County Regional-Truax Field
- Average fare: $526
- Percent increase: 34.54 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $135
- Washington, D.C. — Washington Dulles International Airport
- Average fare: $526
- Percent increase: 33.06 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $131
- Birmingham, Alabama — Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International
- Average fare: $503
- Percent increase: 37.52 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $137
- San Francisco — San Francisco International
- Average fare: $499
- Percent increase: 28 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $109
- Greer, South Carolina — Greenville-Spartanburg International
- Average fare: $490
- Percent increase: 35.62 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $129
- Greensboro, North Carolina — Piedmont Triad International
- Average fare: $486
- Percent increase: 35.41 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $127
- Fresno, California — Fresno Yosemite International
- Average fare: $474
- Percent increase: 42.15 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $140
- Tucson, Arizona — Tucson International
- Average fare: $470
- Percent increase: 37.6 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $128
- Little Rock, Arkansas — Bill and Hillary Clinton Nat Adams Field
- Average fare: $466
- Percent increase: 36.22 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $124
- Pensacola, Florida — Pensacola International
- Average fare: $462
- Percent increase: 51.28 percent
- Dollar amount increase: $157
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
SFO has a lot of expensive routes and a high income clientele. Makes sense.
I am based in HSV (which was formerly crowned as the US’s most expensive airport), and have always weighed the convenience of flying out of our local airport vs. driving 1.5-2 hrs to BHM or BNA or even 3 1/4 hrs to ATL. I’ve found good value for miles, especially for airlines like AA where I’ve noticed award prices can sometimes be correlated to passenger load rather than cash price, so if you can find an off-peak time when no one is flying, you’re more likely to get a 6-8K one way redemption because AA just wants to fill the plane.
IAD and SFO are odd to see on here so I would question their methodology overall. United almost always matches fares from DCA and BWI and fares to/from DC area I always find reasonable.
SFO has tons of competition. With both maybe they see high fares to smaller cities? but that is expected when you are getting a non stop flight.
I agree, particularly with SFO. The 28% increase is well below the others on the list. I would suspect SFO is expensive due to the high number of Trans-pacific flights followed by trans-continental. I bet if this list sorted only domestic fares, SFO would be in the middle of the pack (not defending SFO, but the methodology is ignorant).