23 Cheapest European cities and airports to fly into in 2015

So many of us starting in the US or Canada will be visiting multiple cities when we tour Europe that we have the luxury of flying into several different destinations. But with the airline business changing so rapidly, how do we know which are the cheapest cities to fly into?

Not too many years ago the cheapest flights into Europe were almost always into the largest and busiest airports, which are in London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Amsterdam, but times have changed. Now those are all among the most expensive airports to fly into within Europe, so savvy travelers on multi-stop trips are better off starting elsewhere.

How the test was done

For each city tested I found the cheapest fare starting from the 4 largest cities in the US (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston) plus Atlanta (by popular demand in 2014) along with Canada s largest city (Toronto) in early May, and the cheapest fare in mid July. Then I averaged the two fares and then averaged the fares into all 6 cities into on Index number.

Needless to say, the rankings starting in individual cities can vary from the combined list, but generally they aren t far apart. A bit surprisingly, only a handful of the cheapest flights were non-stops, so almost everyone will be changing planes exactly once in each direction over the Atlantic.

How to use the list below

Especially since many of the cheapest cities below are remote, the obvious strategy is to keep going down the list until you come across one of the cities you intend on visiting. Hopefully you can then find a cheap flight and use that as a hub to explore other cities by rail or low-cost airlines.

Overall, the differences in fares from the top to the bottom of this list are not great enough to justify flying into one and then booking another separate round-trip to your final destination on a low-cost airline, though in some cases it might work out cheaper.

Related information

Cheapest 10 European airports from 6 major cities

This year we broke the list out by city so it s easier to see that some European airports have cheap incoming flights from some places but not others.

Complete list of 23 is below

10 Cheapest European airports from New York City

10 Cheapest European airports from Chicago

10 Cheapest European airports from Los Angeles

10 Cheapest European airports from Houston

10 Cheapest European airports from Atlanta

10 Cheapest European airports from Toronto