Traveling to San Francisco - Which airport is least expensive

[bormanl]

We are traveling from Mpls to San Fran. Which ariport is least expensive to fly in to? San Fran, San Jose or Oakland?

[Buenchico]

I don't think that you've got any real choice. It's not certain airports which are inexpensive, it's certain airlines. (Or, more accurately, it's certain flights with certain airlines).

If you're trying to keep the cost down, I assume that you want to avoid 'full-fare' carriers. Unfortunately, very few budget airlines serve Minneapolis. (It doesn't appear in the destination lists of SouthWest, JetBlue, ATA, Spirit, USA3000 or Allegiant). AirTran serve Minneapolis but they don't have routes to the San Francisco area.

The only budget carrier which serves the route you require is MidWest. They fly from Minneapolis to San Francisco:
http://www.midwestairlines.com/MAWeb/
(Unfortunately, MidWest's prices seem much higher on this route than on most of their other routes. This is probably due to the lack of competition).

Chris

[Clanad]

Actually, in this case, Minneapolis is one of three major hubs (and home base) for Northwest Airlines, one of the U.S. largest airlines, and which provides some really decent fares to the Bay area. $300 roundtrip to SJC, $199, roundtrip to SFO and about $350 roundtrip to OAK. These are all 10 day advance booking fares. Obviously, the fares increase the shorter the time between making ones reservation and the departure date. Midwest Airlines is a small premium fare airline, and doesn't fly directly from Minneapolis to the Bay area, but one has to fly back (east) to Milwaukee, change airplanes then depart for SFO, etc. Northwest is the only non-stop carrier except for Sun Country. Sun Country is a very small carrier (although flying new Boeing 737-800 aircraft) and leave Minneapolis from the Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal, which is on the far south side of the MSP airport (requires a shuttle to change terminals). They only have one flight a day and only to SFO and the price is actually a few dollars more then NWA. Good luck, and welcome to the U.S.!

[Buenchico]

I willingly bow to Clanad's superior knowledge. (He is a US airline pilot, so he ought to know what he's talking about!).

My information was based largely upon searching all of the links from a website which claims to list all US budget airlines. I should have remembered that we've got a real expert here on AB ;-)

Chris