The Los Angeles area has four airports in Midway’s route data: LAX, Hollywood Burbank (BUR), John Wayne in Orange County (SNA) and Ontario (ONT). Together they reach around 185 nonstop destinations, and LAX on its own reaches around 180. So the flight question for a group meeting in Los Angeles is mostly settled at LAX, and the other three airports matter for where people stay rather than where they can fly from.
For a group trip from different cities, a family reunion or a company offsite, the airport is the main extra decision Los Angeles adds. The route count is not the issue.
The numbers behind the four airports
LAX has nonstop flights to around 180 destinations over the next twelve months. Orange County (SNA) reaches around 40, Ontario (ONT) around 30 and Burbank (BUR) around 30. Figures are from Midway’s route data as of October 2026, counted per airport and rounded to the nearest 5.
The three smaller airports add very little reach. Of the area’s destinations, only six cannot be reached nonstop from LAX: Provo from Burbank and Orange County, then Appleton, Colorado Springs, Idaho Falls, Ogden and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway from Orange County. All six are Allegiant or Breeze routes, and none of them runs all year. Ontario adds none, and every international destination in the area’s data is also served from LAX.
LAX’s list splits into around 100 US cities and around 80 abroad, and Mexico accounts for 20 of the foreign ones. The Pacific side is what sets it apart from the inland hubs. Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Auckland are all nonstop from LAX, and none of them is nonstop from Chicago O’Hare. Midway’s shared nonstop destinations by region analysis found that LAX shares a destination with more airports than O’Hare does, even though O’Hare has the longer list.
No airline flies from LAX to even half of its destinations. Delta, United and American are the three largest by destination count and sit close together, with Alaska and Southwest some way behind. That is the opposite of Atlanta, where one airline serves almost every route, and it means a group with mixed airline loyalties can usually all fly into LAX on the carrier they already use.
The smaller airports lean on fewer carriers. Southwest serves most of Burbank’s destinations and is the largest carrier at Ontario. Orange County has no dominant carrier, with Southwest, Allegiant and Alaska the three largest.
See which destinations your group can reach from LAX. Enter everyone’s departure airports and Midway lists the cities all of them reach nonstop. It does not merge the four Los Angeles airports into one. Los Angeles has no IATA metropolitan code (New York has NYC, London has LON), and reusing LAX for the city would make one code mean both an airport and a city, so search takes each Los Angeles airport on its own.
Routes that change with the season
A little under a fifth of LAX’s destinations do not run in every month of the next twelve. Aspen runs from October to April and Hayden (for Steamboat Springs) from December to March. Vienna and Paris Orly start in April 2027, and Hangzhou runs only until December 2026 in the current schedules.
So for a group date several months out, check the month before assuming a route exists. Midway’s month filter shows the destinations that run in the month you pick, and it cannot tell you whether an airline will add or drop a route after the schedules it has.
Which Los Angeles airport to use
Los Angeles is spread out, and the distance between airport and hotel matters more here than in most hub cities. In most cases the better order is to choose the area the group will stay in, then check whether each person has a nonstop into the airport closest to it, and fall back to LAX when they don’t.
LAX
On the west side near the coast, closest to Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, El Segundo and the South Bay beach towns. It is the default for anyone flying from outside the western US, and the only one of the four with nonstops to Europe or Australia.
Burbank (BUR)
North of downtown, close to Hollywood, Glendale, Pasadena and the San Fernando Valley. Its routes are all domestic, mostly to western cities, plus longer ones such as New York JFK, Chicago Midway, Nashville, Atlanta and Dallas. Someone flying from Seattle or Portland can land here instead of LAX.
Orange County (SNA)
In Santa Ana, south-east of Los Angeles, close to Irvine, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Anaheim. It suits a group staying in Orange County or near Disneyland, and it has a few routes to Mexico and Canada.
Ontario (ONT)
East, in the Inland Empire, closest to Riverside, San Bernardino and the drive toward Palm Springs and the mountains. Ontario is the only one of the three smaller airports with a route to Asia, a nonstop to Taipei, and it also flies to San Salvador and three Mexican cities.
Check LAX and the airport nearest your hotel with Midway. Run the search once from LAX, then again with BUR, SNA or ONT, and compare the overlap.
A worked example
Take a group flying from Sydney, Denver and Boston. They share seven destinations in Midway’s data: Dallas-Fort Worth, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. Only Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth have all three routes in every month. The other four depend on a seasonal route from Sydney or Boston.
See also: New York–Los Angeles meeting points, Atlanta–Los Angeles and Los Angeles–Chicago, or browse the full city-pair meeting points hub for every pair.
Flight times from LAX
Shortest scheduled time from LAX in Midway’s data:
| To | Flight time |
|---|---|
| Denver (DEN) | 2h 28m |
| Seattle (SEA) | 2h 55m |
| Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) | 3h 12m |
| Mexico City (MEX) | 3h 39m |
| Chicago (ORD) | 4h 15m |
| Atlanta (ATL) | 4h 19m |
| New York (JFK) | 5h 20m |
| Honolulu (HNL) | 5h 48m |
| London (LHR) | 10h 35m |
| Tokyo (HND) | 11h 50m |
| Sydney (SYD) | 15h 10m |
Times are the shortest monthly schedule over the next twelve months. Flights toward Los Angeles take a different time, mostly because of prevailing winds.
Planning a group meeting in Los Angeles
Getting around. Plan on cars or rideshare for most trips. A group split across hotels in Santa Monica, Hollywood and downtown will spend a lot of its time in traffic, so picking one area and staying there is probably the most useful decision after the flights.
Seasons. The weather is mild all year, so the season matters less than in Chicago or Atlanta. Late spring often brings grey mornings near the coast, and the hottest weeks are usually late summer and early autumn, more so inland than at the beach.
Budget. Los Angeles is rarely a cheap meeting city. Beach and West Hollywood hotels sit at the top of the range, and staying near Burbank, Ontario or in Orange County usually costs less, at the price of a longer drive to the coast.
Who meets in Los Angeles
Groups spanning the Pacific. The strongest case. A group split between the US and Australia, New Zealand or East Asia usually finds LAX in its overlap, often with year-round service on every leg. The US–Asia meeting destinations guide covers the options on both sides of the ocean.
Groups that include Mexico. LAX’s 20 Mexican destinations make it an easy place for friends or family in Mexico and the US to meet without anyone connecting.
Teams split across the coasts. It works when most of the team is in the West. For an even split, the East Coast half flies roughly five hours each way, and a middle city such as Denver is probably fairer. The split-coasts offsite guide compares them.
The route count settles reach. It does not settle the airport, and Midway treats each Los Angeles airport separately, so check the overlap from LAX first and then from the airport nearest where the group will stay.