Best days to Fly which are typically cheaper?

[Genie1953]

We will be flying in to Orlando on our next trip in April. Disney peak season ends on 4/10/10 which is the day we were planning on leaving for Orlando. That means we will be paying peak season resort rates for the first night and unfortunately in 2010 if you check in during peak season you have to pay peak season rates for the Disney Dining plan for the entire trip. So now we are playing around with different dates for our trip. What are the cheapest days to fly? Our 30th anniversary falls on Monday 4/12 so we definitely want to be there before that date. Can anyone tell me how the rates are for flights on Sundays? Are they more or less than on Saturdays....hopefully someone out there can help me out. We have not really flown much before so this will be a rather new experience. We are considering Southwest and wondering what the opinions of that airline are and if there are other airlines out there that are better.

[Fangorn]

I fly a lot on business, and Southwest is my airline of choice. For me, price and consistency of service are key factors. Southwest does not do things the same way as the 'major' airlines (pretty hard to claim that Southwest isn't a major player anymore) and that can be confusing and scary for some people.

As for when to fly: on Southwest in particular, the best days to fly are Tuesday and Wednesday. You'll generally find the cheapest fares on those two days, and less full flights. This generally is true of all airlines as well.

Friday and Monday are usually the most expensive days to fly due primarily to business travel. Saturday is typically more expensive than Sunday, but not by much. On Southwest, the Saturday schedule is radically different from the rest of the week, with fewer flights overall.

Orlando is somewhat different in that Saturday is a very busy day due to all the familes starting and ending their vacations on Saturday. We always avoid Saturday travel to/from Orlando if at all possible.

If I had to rank days from cheapest to most expensive, and based solely on my own experiences, I'd rank them this way:
Tuesday
Wednesday
Sunday
Thursday
Saturday
Monday
Friday

But any ranking isn't going to be true 100% of the time, and as they say, "your mileage may vary".

Hope this helps some.
And congratulations on the anniversary. We'll be doing #35 in June.

Steve

[Madame Leona]

Airtran posts right on it's site that their best prices are offered on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturdays. Others seem to be hit and miss for us.