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The Airlines with the Most Cheap Flight Deals from Each State

Scott Keyes

Scott Keyes

December 8, 2023

3 min read

Table of Contents

When it comes to flights, price isn’t always everything, not for every traveler at least. A slightly higher price can get you luxuries like extra checked baggage, seat selection, priority boarding, and delicious food (not just “for an airline,” but delicious food—period). 

However, the cost of a plane ticket also isn’t insignificant. Lower prices mean more trips, and what’s not to love about that? 

As far as which airlines have the best deals, unfortunately it’s not so cut and dried; it also varies from state to state. 

In the past 12 months, we’ve sent thousands of deals to members departing from nearly 200 US airports. We found those deals available on 110 different international and US-based airlines. While there are many variables and making broad generalizations can mean missing out on some great deals, there are some lessons to be learned from the data.  

Check out the map below to see which airline offered the most flight deals from your state in the past year, and read on for more details.

A map of the number of deals that we found for each US state, color-coded by the airline that offered the most deals

The results point to a few lessons when it comes to finding cheap flights. 

1. Most deals are with a Big 3 airline

There are a handful of low-cost and ultra-low-cost carriers that offer dirt-cheap base fares for flights. While budget airlines do occasionally pull their weight when it comes to in-flight offerings and comfort, we have high standards for the deals that we send members. Therefore, there are certain carriers—including Sun Country, Spirit, and Frontier—that we never send deals for.

The Big 3 airlines vs. other airlines in terms of best deals in the US

Despite dozens of international airlines serving the US, most deals from your airport will be bookable on one of the three US legacy airlines: American, Delta, and United. Those Big 3 airlines dominate when it comes to deals. 

In every state, the airline that we most frequently found great deals on was either American, Delta, or United. Note: This means a deal was bookable on that airline, not that the flight was operated by the airline, as sometimes the flight is operated by a codeshare partner (more on that in a bit). 

Despite not being US-based, Air Canada had the fourth-highest number of cheap flights for US travelers, followed by US-based JetBlue, Alaska Airlines, and budget airline Breeze. 

You might assume that if we found the most deals on an airline, it’s because that airline offers the most flights from that state. But that’s not always the case, as we’ll explain below.

2. If an airport is monopolized by one airline, deals are usually with its competitors

Some airports are known as hubs for particular airlines. In some cases, the airline’s presence is so strong it essentially has a monopoly on that airport. 

For example, Atlanta is Delta’s biggest hub; the airline’s flights account for more than half of the daily departures from the Atlanta airport, which is Georgia’s largest airport. You might think that with so many flights, Delta would have the most deals, but we actually found more deals bookable on American. 

In fact, when one airline has a monopoly on an airport’s flights, a good rule of thumb is that the greatest number of deals are typically offered by competitor airlines. 

3. Don’t ignore international carriers and smaller US airlines

Of all the deals we sent in the past year, 34% were bookable on one of the Big 3 US airlines: American, Delta, and United. 

Now, these airlines all codeshare with at least a dozen other airlines, which means that many of the deals we’ve sent were bookable on those airlines, as well as another international airline. The flight may even have been operated by the other airline.

Chart of the airlines with the best deals in the US

However, that doesn’t mean you should only look for deals on the major airlines. Sixty six percent of the deals we sent were on smaller US airlines such as JetBlue, Alaska, Breeze, and Avelo, or international carriers like British Airways, Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, TAP Air Portugal, and Icelandair.

In some cases, these smaller airlines and international carriers are the only airlines that go to these places; for example, if you want to visit Svalbard, you’ll need to fly an international carrier. Although the flight may be bookable on a US partner airline thanks to codesharing, at least the final leg would be operated by an international airline. 

4. Star Alliance reigns supreme

Chart of the best alliances for deals in the US

For several years in a row, we’ve found the most deals on airlines that are part of Star Alliance (which includes United and Air Canada). In fact, 28% of all the deals we’ve found in the past 12 months have been on a Star Alliance carrier. While the competition has inched closer, with Oneworld providing 26% of the deals and SkyTeam providing 24%, Star Alliance has maintained its stronghold. 

5. More airlines equals more deals 

The single biggest factor guiding how many cheap flights there are on a given route is simply how much competition there is between airlines. Cities and states with more flights tend to see more frequent deals. 

The bottom line

Cast a wide net when looking for cheap flights. One of the worst things you can do when shopping around is to only search for flights on one airline. 

The airline that dominates your region or the airline that’s your typical go-to may not offer the best deals for your particular trip, and you could miss an incredible deal on a perfectly safe, reputable, comfortable airline you didn’t think to check. 

For the best chance of snagging a great deal, use a search site like Google Flights to search multiple airlines. Or join Going, and let us do the searching for you. 

Breakdown by state

Below, we included the full breakdown of cheap flight deals from each state, including the number of deals that we found over the past year, the number of airports that we searched, and the airline with the most deals across the state. 

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

We don’t currently search for deals from any airports in Delaware, but airports in Maryland or Pennsylvania are 1–2 hours away. 

Florida

Georgia

Hawai'i

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico 

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee 

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

Washington, DC

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Methodology

The Travel Experts at Going use a combination of technology and human-powered flight searching to look at thousands of possible airfare deals every week. When we find a deal that meets our high standards, we send it to our members with instructions on how to find and book the deal. 

To reach our conclusions on the best and worst airlines, we tallied up the number of deals sent from each airport we serve in each state and counted the number of deals that were bookable on each airline between the dates of July 17, 2023, and July 17, 2024. As noted above, there is overlap; some deals are bookable on multiple airlines due to codesharing and price competition. 

Scott Keyes

Scott Keyes

Founder & Chief Flight Expert

Scott has traveled to 46 countries (and 46 states!), living in California, to Oaxaca, to Oregon. He’s left-handed, drinks five cups of tea daily, and holds a vendetta against the “Happy Birthday” song. On a dare, he once ate 13 hot dogs (and a bowl of Dippin’ Dots) at the ballpark. He grew up in Ohio and founded Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) in a Denver coffee shop. Favorite airport: PDX.

Published December 8, 2023

Last updated July 24, 2024

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