How can I easily compare the affordability of two departure airports with respect to a specific set of airports I frequently fly to?
I would like to compare two airports in terms of how cheap/expensive it is to fly from these two airports to a specific set of airports I frequently fly to. Is there any convenient way to do so?
Example:
- two departure airports = {SFO, SEA}
- set of airports I frequently fly to = {CDG, HKG, ICN, MNL, PVG, TPE, SIN}
Which departure airport is typically cheaper, and what's the price difference?
Motivation: I am comparing the cost of living between different cities, and I include the airport affordability as part of the cost of living.
What I found so far:
- https://www.cheapflights.com/news/2016-airport-affordability-report (mirror): 2016 Airport Affordability Report -> Doesn't allow to specify set of airports I frequently fly to.
- Google Maps has a view showing the price of flights given a departure airport (mirror), but doesn't have a convenient way to compare to 2 departure airports.
- If we give multiple destinations and multiple origins in Google Flights (mirror), then it isn't clear which departure airport is typically cheaper on average.
Best Answer
How can I easily compare the affordability of two departure airports ...
By looking at prices on Google Flights for durations, dates & booking classes that are representative of your specific flight plans, populating a spreadsheet, and looking at the results.
Sorry, I'm not trying to be snarky here. Google Flight's "price on calendar feature" and specifically the prize graphs are great tools to effectively display a large set of flight prices and quickly distill it to a single number. I just looked up SFO/SEA to TPE/HKG/MNL for Jan + Feb, and it took me less than two minutes, a lot less than writing this answer :-)
If you want to get really fancy and find the absolute lowest price for both airports at the same time, you can use ITA Matrix instead, but it'll take a you a few minutes longer.
FWIW: I didn't see any meaningful difference in my quick research. Differences seemed less than 10% and just "noise".
There is more than just price to pick a "preferred" airport.
- SFO serves way more international destinations than SEA, including all of your targets (SEA currently doesn't serve HKG or MNL) so it's better for non-stop.
- SFO is a hub for United, which serves all of your destinations. So if you fly a lot (or some premium cabin) you would be much more likely to accumulate benefits and status. While the airlines have devalued their loyalty programs a lot in recent years, it can still be fairly valuable in the right circumstances. SEA's only hub airlines is Alaska, which is North America only (plus Costa Rica).
- Getting to/from the airport: That will depend a lot on where you live relative to the airport and/or public transit, but it's often a non-trivial part of the overall trip cost.
Needless to say: housing is substantially more expensive in the Bay Area, so unless you fly a whole lot AND pay everything out of your pocket (and not on company/business dime), the difference in actual ticket prices will not make a meaningful difference and it feels like the tail wagging the dog.
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