To save money and avoid the hassles of flying on the Sunday after Thanksgiving – historically the busiest single air travel day of the year – many people will be flying home today. For about one out of six Southern Arizonans, this will be a likely scenario:
The aircraft taxis to the gate, as soon as it comes to a stop, most fellow passengers will stand up, crowd the aisle and wait for the aircraft door to be opened on to the jetway. Thoughts will turn to going down to baggage claim to retrieve checked suitcases.
  
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Right about then it will probably hit: There’s still another two hours, or so, of driving ahead on Interstate 10 before the trip finally ends at home. And, the slightest disruption on the freeway could easily make that a longer road trip.
These are Southern Arizonans who decided to fly from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, instead of Tucson International Airport. Why? The common reason given is to take advantage of the cheaper airfares out of Sky Harbor.
So how much money did they save? Inside Tucson Business looked at it three different ways and the savings amounted to as little $9.63 on average to as much as $20.59 on fares to the top destinations from the two airports.
Considering it cost those same passengers about 2 hours and 45 minutes more in travel time to and from Sky Harbor, those passengers aren’t placing too much value on their time. At the most it equates to just $7.49 an hour. At the least it’s just $3.51 an hour.
But then, add in the expenses of either driving and parking or taking a shuttle to either airport, and the advantage clearly goes to Tucson International Airport.
Obviously the amount of travel time depends on where the travel originates. From Marana or Oracle, the distance to Phoenix isn’t as great as it is from Sahuarita, Green Valley or Vail.
David Taylor, demographer-statistician for Pima Association of Governments, keeps track of population data for the region. He has calculated the center of metropolitan Tucson’s population is at First Street and Cherry Avenue at the University of Arizona.
So we took that as a starting point.
Driving and parking at Tucson’s airport adds $22.52 to the cost but adds $71.36 to the cost of getting to Phoenix’s airport. We figured car travel at just 14 cents a mile – a frugal figure, to be sure, but it’s the one the government uses to reimburse for charitable driving. Parking was figured at the rate each airport’s economy lot charges for five days.
Using a shuttle instead, adds $27 round-trip to Tucson International versus $52 to go to Phoenix.
And then there’s time. Using Google maps as our timing guide and getting to the airport an hour ahead of time, the trip to and from Tucson’s airport takes just over 2 hours by car. The trip to the airport in Phoenix and back takes almost 5 hours on a typical day.
Carol Phillips, marketing director for the Tucson Airport Authority, says that even when airfares to a specific destination aren’t as close as the averages for the top destinations, passengers owe it to themselves to consider the time, especially the time on the way back home.
"People always think about starting out their trip," Phillips says. "They can rationalize the drive to Phoenix. But it’s hard coming back home. You’re worn out, your more tired and you just really want to get home. But if you land in Phoenix, you’ve still got another trip ahead of you. If you’ve already had a bad day, that’s not something you want to look forward to. And that’s not even considering there might delays on the freeway."
Phillips oversees the www.airtucson.com website – http://airtucson.com – which updates discount airfares out of Tucson daily and offers regular e-mail updates of special air fares.
Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Business Travel appears the fourth week of each month.
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