Idaho Falls airport says it’s not as expensive as you think

Summer travel is right around the corner, but before you head to Salt Lake City to catch a flight, you may want to consider flying from Idaho Falls Regional Airport.

The airport recently hired a marketing firm to convince fliers of all it has to offer.

“Shorter drive times, easy connections. There’s cheap parking here,” said Craig Davis, the airport’s director.

But airport officials are up against a deep-rooted public perception that flying from Salt Lake City is cheaper.

“We want the passengers in our community to at least take a look and make the decision for themselves and investigate it,” said Davis.

With the help of a travel agent, Local News 8 looked at airfares to multiple destinations from both Idaho Falls and Salt Lake City.

Local News 8 found a flight from Salt Lake City to Denver for $178. The cheapest flight Local News 8 found from Idaho Falls to Denver cost $436.

“There’s not a lot of competition in that Idaho Falls-Denver market. There’s just the one airline that goes direct, and so when there’s not a lot of competition in the market, the prices tend to be more expensive,” said Celeste French, owner of Celeste’s Travel.

When Local News 8 looked at other destinations, however, the price difference narrowed in many cases.

Local News 8 found a flight from Idaho Falls to Boston for $647, compared with the same flight from Salt Lake City for $638.

“Once you factor in the time and the expense of hotels and gas, a lot of times it is cheaper to fly out of Idaho Falls,” said Davis.

“It seems like this summer, to Europe, it’s been just as cheap or cheaper out of Idaho Falls than it has been out of Salt Lake,” said French.

Davis said fares from Idaho Falls to Denver could soon drop when Frontier Airlines begins offering flights to Denver next month.