Cheapflights.ca Ranks Canadian and U.S. Border Airports on Affordability

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - Sep 17, 2013) - The rankings are in. Cheapflights.ca, the online leader in finding and publishing travel deals, has pulled the data, crunched the numbers and compiled its Canadian Airport Affordability Index. In its third year, the 2013 Airport Affordability Index ranks the 20 most popular Canadian and U.S. border airports based on the average airfares found to top destinations by Cheapflights users in the month of August.

The Cheapflights Canadian Airport Affordability Index offers an annual snapshot of airports and airfares. For comparison sake, the survey includes a column to show how rankings have changed since last year. This year, while Bellingham International retains the top spot, the rest of the U.S. border airports dropped in their rankings as Kelowna, Moncton and Victoria all jumped into the top five. Vermont's Burlington International was even dropped from the list as it wasn't one of the top 20 most popular of the airports serving Canadians. Additionally, this year's study shows the welcome news that many of the airfare averages for the month are down over 2012. 

"Each year we compile the Airport Affordability Index as a baseline for comparing airports and airfares, both in the moment and over time," said Melisse Hinkle, editor at Cheapflights.ca "It's a regular reminder that airfares are fluid and, to a degree, very local. Our advice to travellers is to cast a wide net when researching flights and make a point to be as open as possible to different airports, both departure and arrival, as well as travel days and dates. If you do your homework, you will know a deal when you spot it and can make the most of your travel budget by bagging a bargain."

Below are the Cheapflights.ca rankings of the 20 airports with the average return airfare, including taxes, for travel to some of the most popular destinations:

Cheapflights.ca's sister site in the U.S., Cheapflights.com, also issues an annual Airport Affordability Rankings featuring the average airfare to key destinations for the 101 most popular airports in the U.S. As many Canadians travel to, from and within the U.S., this report can be an additional useful guide for seeing how these airports stack up.

Methodology
Cheapflights.ca compiled this ranking based on user searches during the month of August 2013. The airports ranked were the 20 most searched Canadian and U.S. border airports and the average airfares were calculated using the flight prices our users found to popular destinations, including Montreal, Miami, Los Angeles, London, Los Cabos, Bangkok and Cancun.

To see Cheapflights.ca's full list of the 20 airports ranked on affordability, visit www.cheapflights.ca/travel/2013-airport-affordability-index.

To check out Cheapflights.com's full list of the 101 airports ranked on affordability, visit www.cheapflights.com/travel/101-airports-ranked-on-affordability-2013.

About Cheapflights.ca, part of the Momondo Group
Momondo Group is an online travel media and technology company that is driven by the belief that an open world is a better world. The group now serves travel search and inspiration to over 13 million visitors a month -- plus 6 million travel newsletter subscribers -- via its Cheapflights (www.cheapflights.ca) and momondo (www.momondo.com) brands.

Skygate began the sourcing of complex air-travel data in 1992, while Cheapflights pioneered the online comparison of flight deals for users in 1996 and momondo launched meta-search in the Nordic countries in 2006. 

The Group has offices in London, Copenhagen, Boston and Toronto, with a consumer base across more than 20 core international markets but users all over the world.

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