The 'Other' Airport
I’m sure you’ve heard of it. That little airport over in East Mesa? The one that used to have a really cheap flight to Vegas, but apparently discontinued it? Yeah, that’s all I had ever heard about it too.
Two weeks ago we needed to get to Portland, Oregon on short notice (72 hours). I checked all the usual places first: orbitz.com, travelocity.com, Southwest, etc. The cheapest I could find was $420/each for a roundtrip with a layover in Salt Lake City. Then I checked our airline credit card that we put everything on to accrue miles and we had enough for one free roundtrip ticket. Unfortunately, it would have been $670 to add the second person on the same flight. So basically our options were $840 and no miles for a flight with a layover, $670 and all of our miles for a direct flight, or $420 and all of our miles for a direct flight and one with a layover (so two different drop off/pick up times at the airport and no moral support for me and my nail-biting flying fear). Not particularly attractive options.
Then I got a thought to check the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport… Because I’m the QUEEN of cheap travel. That’s right, bow down. The Mesa airport flies to a really limited amount of locations, but they do fly to Eugene, Oregon, which is about 100ish miles from Portland. Two roundtrip tickets from Mesa to Eugene was $215 (that’s including one roundtrip checked bag). Of course, being 100 miles from our destination meant that we had to rent a car, but that was only an additional $100 (and we got to keep it for the weekend). So for $315 we made the trip.
The other fabulousness of the Mesa airport is that it’s so small that parking, check-in, security and baggage claim is all super quick and easy.
Jason was worried that because it is a small airport, the plane would be super small (and my flying fear would be increased). But that was not a worry because it was a 5 seat wide, 35 seat deep jet; nice and big. The flight out of Phoenix was bumpy (as per usual), but the one in was smooth as silk.
So my vote is thumbs up! Fly Phoenix-Mesa Gateway when you get a chance. Here are the cities they fly to:
Bellingham, WA (BLI)
Billings, MT (BIL)
Bismarck, ND (BIS)
Cedar Rapids, IA (CID)
Eugene, OR (EUG)
Fargo, ND (FAR)
Great Falls, MT (GTF)
Medford, OR (MFR)
Missoula, MT (MSO)
Peoria, IL (PIA)
Rapid City, SD (RAP)
Redmond-Bend, OR (RDM)
Rockford, IL (RFD)
Sioux Falls, SD (FSD)
Springfield, MO (SGF)