Airports
Search the Whole City: How Metro Airport Codes Find Cheaper Flights
Search NYC, CHI or WAS instead of one airport to cover every New York, Chicago or Washington airport at once. On New York to Miami, JFK wasn't cheapest.
Many big US cities have more than one airport. If you search a single airport, you can miss a cheaper flight from the one across town. Metro codes fix that by searching every airport in the area at once.
The codes worth knowing
- NYC (New York): JFK, LaGuardia (LGA) and Newark (EWR). Results can also include Stewart (SWF), about 60 miles north of Manhattan.
- CHI (Chicago): O'Hare (ORD) and Midway (MDW).
- WAS (Washington DC): Dulles (IAD), Reagan National (DCA) and Baltimore/Washington (BWI).
Some single-airport codes also pull in nearby airports. In our searches, Los Angeles (LAX) results included Long Beach, Ontario and Orange County, and Miami (MIA) results included Fort Lauderdale.
Why it saves money
Airlines price each airport separately, and the cheapest option is often not the biggest airport. When we checked New York to Miami using the NYC code, the lowest fares all left from Newark, LaGuardia or Stewart, starting at $76. A search limited to JFK would have missed them.
Every route on FarePockets uses metro codes where a city has several airports, so the prices on pages like New York to Miami and Chicago to Las Vegas already cover the whole city.
Before you book a cheaper airport
- Add up the ground costs. A fare that is $40 cheaper is not a deal if the train or ride to a farther airport costs $60.
- Check the arrival airport too. Landing at Fort Lauderdale instead of Miami, or Long Beach instead of LAX, may be closer to where you are going, or much farther.
- Watch the times. Smaller airports have fewer flights, so the cheap option may leave very early or very late.
When you are ready, search flights using your city name, or browse the cheapest routes we track.
