It’s always a bummer to spend a lot on airfare—once you’re at your destination, you feel like your budget is a little tighter because you spent so much just to get there. Getting a steal for your voyage is one of the best feelings. After all, it makes the small amount of legroom and shrieking toddlers on your flight much more bearable when you’re not spending a fortune to experience it. Here to tell us which airlines offer the least expensive flights in the U.S. is AirAdvisor. Ranking the budget carriers in order of cheapness, the company makes it easier to start your vacation planning on a high note.
Before we spill the results, we’ll share a fun factoid: the average revenue for 10 budget carrier airlines per seat mile in 2022 and 2023 was as small as 9 cents and topped out at 17 cents. The seat miles add up quickly!
The cheapest airline in the U.S. is Frontier. They’re the 9 cents people! (To be fair, it’s actually $0.0985, so it’s closer to a dime). Generally speaking, their flights are 1 penny cheaper than the next airline on the list. To boot, they offer periodic flash sales that make things even sweeter. And just to make sure we love them, they are also touting their status as America’s “greenest airline” with their fuel-cutting practices.
The second most inexpensive airline is Spirit, coming in at 11 cents revenue per seat mile. These neon banana planes may be no frills, but that’s cool—it just leaves you more money for that splurge Airbnb. Just make sure your carry-on can fit in that little tester box at the gate or start putting on more layers!
And the third cheapest airline is Hawaiian Airlines. What?! Right…this is not a budget airline, but Hawaiian’s seat revenue per seat mile was 12 cents. Yahoo and pass the lei! Hawaiian is also a very reliable airline in terms of delays and cancellations.
May your summer trip planning be entirely within your budget!