Co-Terminal Airports: What They Are and How They Can Help You

Anything that makes finding more affordable flights easy or opens up options for award travel is a plus, and one of these hacks is understanding co-terminal airports. Co-terminal airports (also known as co-terminals) are airports in the same city or region that can be utilized interchangeably for ticketing, including award redemptions. 

In this guide, we’ll run through what co-teminals actually are, including a list of the most popular ones, and discuss how you can use them to your advantage in different travel situations.

What are co-terminal airports? 

Some cities have multiple airports, but they might not be co-terminals. Co-terminal airports are considered the same point when it comes to calculating fares or award tickets. This means you could arrive and depart from two different co-terminal airports in the same city on a single airline, and it would be considered a round-trip fare, not an open-jaw. 

The main thing to know about co-terminal airports is that when you book a single ticket with two such airports, they’re considered the same point. This can open up flexibility and availability when booking award tickets or in the event of major cancellations or delays. 

Some airlines, such as Alaska, even allow you to search for co-terminals instead of just single airports, which can make flexible award searches easier. For example, you can look up the Bay Area, which will pull results from San Francisco (SFO), San Jose (SJC), or Oakland (OAK). 

An easy example of two airports in a city that aren’t co-terminals is in Bangkok. The city has two airports: Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK), which is the main international airport, and Don Mueang International Airport (DMK), which is a smaller airport primarily served by low-cost carriers. They aren’t co-terminals because you can’t fly on a single ticket as they’re not served by the same airlines. 

List of co-terminal airports

The list of co-terminal airports will likely never be exhaustive, because airlines group co-terminals together differently based on where and how they fly. For example, American Airlines includes the following four airports as co-terminal airports when flying to Los Angeles: 

• Los Angeles (LAX)
• Ontario (ONT)
• Hollywood Burbank (BUR)
• John Wayne Orange County (SNA)

However, Alaska Airlines also includes Long Beach Daugherty Field (LGB), along with the aforementioned airports, in its list of Los Angeles co-terminal airports. Still, our list below offers a look at the most popular co-terminal airports worldwide, separated by continent. 

North America

• Bay Area: San Francisco (SFO), San Jose (SJC), Oakland (OAK)*
• Chicago (CHI): Midway (MDW), O’Hare (ORD)
• Dallas: Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Love Field (DAL)
• Houston: Bush Intercontinental (IAH), Hobby (HOU)
• Los Angeles: Los Angeles International (LAX), John Wayne Orange County (SNA), Long Beach Daugherty Field (LGB), Hollywood Burbank (BUR), Ontario (ONT), and San Bernardino (SBD), Long Beach (LGB)*
• New York (NYC): Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA), Newark (EWR), Westchester (HPN)*, Islip/Long Island (ISP)
• South Florida: Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Miami (MIA), West Palm Beach (PBI)*
• Toronto (YTO): Billy Bishop (YTZ), Hamilton (YHM), Pearson (YYZ)
• Washington, DC (WAS): Dulles (IAD), Reagan National (DCA), Baltimore-Washington Airport (BWI)*

*Groupings may vary by airline

Europe

• Istanbul: Istanbul (IST), Sabiha Gokcen (SAW)
• London (LON): City (LCY), Gatwick (LGW), Heathrow (LHR), Luton (LTN), Stansted (STN)
• Milan (MIL): Bergamo (BGY), Linate (LIN), Malpensa (MXP)
• Paris (PAR): Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Orly (ORY)
• Stockholm (STO): Arlanda (ARN), Bromma (BMA)

South America

• Buenos Aires (BUE): Aeroparque (AEP), Ezeiza (EZE)
• Rio de Janeiro (RIO): Galeão (GIG), Santos Dumont (SDU)
• São Paulo (SAO): Congonhas (CGH), Guarulhos (GRU), Viracopos/Campinas (VCP)

Asia

• Beijing (BJS): Capital (PEK), Daxing (PKX)
• Jakarta (JKT): Soekarno-Hatta (CGK), Halim Perdanakusama (HLP)
• Osaka (OSA): Itami (ITM), Kansai (KIX), Kobe (UKB)
• Sapporo (SPK): New Chitose (CTS), Okadama (OKD)
• Seoul (SEL): Gimpo (GMP), Incheon (ICN)
• Shanghai: Hongqiao (SHA), Pudong (PVG)
• Taipei: Songshan (TSA), Taoyuan (TPE)
• Tokyo (TYO): Haneda (HND), Narita (NRT)

How to use co-terminals to travel better

Co-terminal airports can help you when booking and during travel in various ways. Since co-terminals are considered the same point, using this to your advantage offers additional flexibility when planning and traveling. Here are some of the ways knowing about co-terminals can improve your travel experience.

Flexibility for award availability

Some airlines allow you to search for round-trip award availability by the co-terminal code or the city code instead of the actual airport. Doing this can pull in additional results from co-terminals, offering more flexibility and availability, especially if you’re limited to specific dates or need more than one award ticket. 

It might mean you can get saver or low-level award availability, which can often be really difficult to find. Or, you might be able to fly nonstop instead of having a layover when flying to a co-terminal.

Ease for layovers and stopovers

Some airports (Heathrow, JFK, Incheon, and Narita, we’re looking at you) are far from the city center, making transit time-consuming, expensive, and tedious, especially if you have a short layover or stopover. Using co-terminals to your advantage can make this easier. 

For example, if you have a layover in New York City from Chicago (ORD) en route to Madrid (MAD), flying into LaGuardia (LGA) is easier because it’s closer to Manhattan. However, since you can’t fly from LGA nonstop to MAD, you’ll have to fly out of JFK or Newark (EWR) for your outbound flight to Spain. 

Using co-terminals would mean you can book this trip on one airline, one ticket, without having to do an open-jaw itinerary, by searching by NYC instead of the individual airport code. 

Co-terminals also offer more options for more convenient layovers. This could mean better airports, more suitable timing, or avoidance of certain airports in cities that often see bad weather during certain times of year.

Rebooking during delays and cancellations

Imagine you’re flying to Los Angeles (LAX) from the East Coast with a layover in Chicago. Due to bad weather somewhere in the United States, your incoming aircraft is delayed, which means your flight is delayed and you’ll miss your layover. The airline has rebooked you, but you’re going to get home hours later than planned. 

An easy solution is to call the airline and ask if there are any flights available (even nonstop) to a co-terminal airport, since Los Angeles has various co-terminals that vary based on airline. 

You might not have initially booked that nonstop flight between the East Coast and Burbank (BUR) or Orange County (SNA) because it was really expensive, or the times didn’t quite fit. But the airline may be able to change your itinerary if there’s availability in order to get you home faster, given the delay. 

Or, imagine that aforementioned East Coast Hub is JFK. If you’re willing to cab it from JFK to co-terminal LGA (know this could take a while in traffic), you might also get home faster or avoid sleeping in the airport lounge if you can get the airline to reroute you via LGA.

While it may not always work perfectly, keeping co-terminals in mind during delays and cancellations gives you additional flexibility to get to your destination faster, but you may have to inquire specifically for this, because many airline reps won’t offer it up as a solution unless you ask.

Flight changes

If an airline changes your flight, you can try calling to change the airport to a more favorable co-terminal airport that works better for you. There are no guarantees, but if you’ve already found the itinerary you want (even better if you can confirm there’s award availability), you may have better luck. 

Keep in mind that airlines such as Delta and American don’t allow same-day destination or origin flight changes, but some passengers with higher levels of elite status have reported success. It’s always worth a try, but it may not work.  

Summary 

Co-terminals are more than just airports in the same city—you can use these additional airports to your advantage to find additional award availability, cheaper plane tickets, have more flexibility during a stopover or layover, or help mitigate unexpected travel delays or cancellations. Use the co-terminal airports in this list when searching for flights and award availability or when troubleshooting delays and cancellations, as understanding this travel hack is the first step to successfully using it to your advantage.