Best (cheapest) airports to fly into/out of (mostly Central Europe)

Not sure if there is any definitive answer. It depends a bit on what major airlines fly out of your departure airport, or are dominant there, coupled with the cities they frequently fly into. For example, with Delta, allied with Air France/KLM, Paris and Amsterdam generally are good prices. United partners with Lufthansa...so German destinations work, American with British Airways, so London comes up economical. For open Jaw, it is best to pick cities heavily serviced by the same air partners as well.

All that said though, sometimes deals just come up that blow that logic away. I would use the above guidlines as a starting point, but mostly pick the itinerary that works best, then start tracking tickets with several options. There are also some sites that have historical pricing, that may provide some guidance.

Being on the west coast, it will be a bit more expensive than East or Midwest, and if you are forced into connecting flights in the US, some price discount may be lost.

Really there is no such thing as the cheapest airport. It is generally concluded that Heathrow has some of the highest fees so - maybe - that one should be avoided. BUT -- two different airlines flying into the same airport can have very different fee structure. It makes no sense to fly into a perceived cheaper airport just to have to spend many additional dollars - and time - getting to your starting point. Or lots of time and money returning to your starting point. In the long run we have always found open jaw tickets to be the cheapest, period. IMO you can burn a lot of brain cells trying to save a couple hundred dollars of airfare when it is some much easier to save that money elsewhere in the travel schedule. Pick the airport that is most convenient for your travel schedule.

Ten years ago we got a really cheap flight connecting Bucharest, Romania with Venice, Italy. Sadly, that airline went out of business (maybe they weren't charging enough?), but if Romania fits into your plans, see if there's an airline with a suitable price that flys there. The airport was compact and easy to reach by bus.

Assuming you're flying out of PDX it can be a mixed bag. Sometimes you can get great deals on round trips to Amsterdam but it's hit and miss and then you have to get to your final destination which can be time consuming and more $$. Flying open-jawed to anywhere from PDX can be an expensive proposition. Last summer I wanted to fly open-jaws flying home from Budapest, didn't matter to me where I flew into. I found the best deal to be flying into Brussels and out of Budapest on Air Canada with a stop in Vancouver going out and Calgary coming back, it was pricey (about $1500) but had good flight times and I try to never have 2 or more stops no matter how much it saves. You can sometimes get good flights on IcelandAir. They all have a stop at Keflavik before continuing on to wherever you go on the continent but their flight times tend to be shorter because of short layovers at Keflavik and prices can be the lowest around.

Edit: if you fly out of SEA you can sometimes find better fares but I didn't have much luck with that either. When I lived in Minneapolis I used to curse flying out of MSP because it was so much more expensive than the East Coast, but PDX and SEA are worse.

Here's one option - Google explore flights. Try Central Europe as your destination. You may need to try other destinations to get the best results.

Google bought this site - ITA Matrix not long ago. For dates, the calendar mode is usually more helpful than the exact date option. There is also an open jaw (multi-city) option.

I seem to have fallen into a habit of flying through Frankfurt, very efficient and clean and I like their bookstore. From there I continue to my destination--Budapest, Vienna and Tallinn all have decent airports and I had no quibbles about Heathrow, either. I fly United and Lufthansa and happily get the 9:45 am flight from Frankfurt which puts me back home in San Francisco at 1 pm. I would sooner be boiled in hot oil than ever go through CDG again. My experience there a few years ago has actually put me off visiting France all together, though I expect I'll reconsider since Paris is on my list of places to visit.

Too bad you're travelling in the summer, which is the most expensive time of the year airfare-wise. I just received an alert for Newark (NJ) to Vienna for $690 round trip on Austrian/United. Travel period goes until mid-March 2015. I realize that this is not relevant for your planned summer 2015 travel, but the point is that you can sign up for airfare alerts for various itineraries on Airfare Watchdog.

Like others have noted, Heathrow is high for airport taxes. Unfortunately, Heathrow is sometimes hard to avoid if you happen to fly on American. Some airports that seem to be more reasonable, at least right now, are Frankfurt, Zurich, Munich and Salzburg. I just recently flew out of Basel/Mulhouse which worked really well as far as centrally located, however, I had to go through Heathrow.

Shari,

I think unless you do some homework and look up airport taxes and such, you wont find much of anything that will tell you to use this or that airport.

at one time Istanbul airport was inexpensive to fly in/out of. But im not so sure now.

if you check out flight search engines like Skyscanner.com and Kayak.com and others, i think you will find that they include airport taxes and such so that its all included in the price. On some search engines you can select a box "nearby airports" and see how the prices will vary.

If you are going to some larger cities where you maybe able to choose where you fly in/out of, you may find a price difference. But then you may have to include a longer travel time to/from the city.

One other thing is that if you find a cheap airport to fly/in out of but its 500 miles away from where you want to be, then getting to your final destination may eat up any savings. Then theres the time factor. If you have to spend overnight or 6+ hours waiting for your next flight, that will cost you time. Time where you could be oooooing and awing over sights and not spending it warming a seat in an airport, train or bus.

I fly from PDX to Amsterdam (AMS) on my trips since i use AMS as my "hub" and "gateway" into Europe. Its about a 10 hour flight, non stop, and so far it works for me and where i want to go. My cost r/t and in September has been approximately 1200~1300 USD in the past 3 years. But i have noticed the r/t prices, for september, have been going up approximately 50 USD per year that i have flown. Note that those prices are for me, solo.

happy trails.

Earlier this year I checked prices on RT to Istanbul and it was unbelievably inexpensive. I even determined that i could fly in and out of Istanbul and then purchase a separate round trip ticket to Budapest and back for almost the same cost of a RT to Budapest.

From Istanbul you can go overland through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and into Vienna. Air from Vienna or Budapest back to Istanbul was about $350 if purchased as a RT ticket; use just half of it. Odd how that works. Everyone extolls the virtues of Open Jaw and sometimes it does save, but I have found that every trip is unique and has to be looked at from a number of angles. On that particular trip we ended up going the other direction; ending in Istanbul and then flying back to Budapest for the trip home. Worked out really well. Same cost, but more experiences. Sometimes I spend a week plugging routes until I am satisfied. I'm also pretty particular on layover times. 1.5 hours minimum which often eliminates most to the super bargain fares. .

Thanks. With respect to Open Jaw, I know there was an older forum on this topic, but it hasn't been active for awhile. I'd like to know how best to search Open Jaw. I've read about using the ITA website, but doing the trip as multiple legs seems more expensive. I read where someone said put in multiple destinations, separated by commas, but my server got hung up.

@PM I have to change planes someplace in Europe so it might as well be Istanbul if it works on the other factors.

For Open Jaw. It isn't that complicated. You choose Multi-City Journey on any of the major search engines.

My experience is that multi-city itinerary searches, other than open-jaw, yield astronomical fares. Use open-jaw searches for flights from North America to/from Europe, and then search separately for flights within Europe.

Using the multi-city approach is giving me very high airfare costs. of course, I'm putting in dates that are the highest season. Travelling in July seems to be a little less expensive than August. Putting in Istanbul as the the arrival city and doing it as a straight RT ticket seems to yield the best price, but that's before looking for local flights.

You could very well wind up using one airline to arrive in Europe and another airline or airlines (which may or may not be code-share partners of your original airline) to fly within Europe, so separate tickets could be involved.

A couple of things regarding multiple-leg journies: every stop or plane transfer increases the chance of luggage getting lost or misdirected, and if one flight is late it could affect you making your next onward flight. Also, in a city with more than one airport, if you land at one airport but need to get to another airport for your next flight, that could be a factor.

@Shari, occasionally I do better booking flights independently. This is sort of extreme but its current so I have it on hand: US to Uzbekistan with a stop in Budapest on the return trip ran about $3,500. Round trip to Budapest and then a second round trip ticket from Budapest to Uzbekistan purchased independently on another airline was about $2600. So we spent a few days in Budapest on the way up and a few days on the way back as opposed to one long stay and saved some cash.

Like I said, you just have to be imaginative and spend some time searching through it. I also look at planning trips where I can capitalize on a hub. Again, Budapest because I spend so much time there. From Budapest Moscow, Istanbul, Jerusalem to name a few unusual locations are about $350rt. Just a few more dollars will get you to Azerbaijan. Other major cities will have other great cheap connections. Expand your expectations........