New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have around 110 destinations served nonstop from all three cities, according to Midway’s route data for the next twelve months. Austin is the Midway Point for the trio (the shared destination Midway marks as the fairest by distance), at about 4 hours from New York, 2h40 from Chicago and 2h45 from Los Angeles. Kansas City has the shortest longest flight, about 3h15, and Guatemala City has the most even split, with the three flights within about 15 minutes of each other.
The figures count every airport of each city in Midway’s data: JFK, LaGuardia and Newark for New York, O’Hare and Midway for Chicago, and LAX, Burbank, Orange County and Ontario for Los Angeles. The data covers the next twelve months of schedules for the 600 busiest airports, as of October 2026, and counts are rounded to the nearest 5. A destination is shared when each city has a nonstop (no change of plane) to it in at least one month. The method for any three cities is in the guide to where three friends in different cities can meet.
See every destination New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all reach nonstop
Which airports count
New York and Chicago are metro areas in Midway, so entering NYC or CHI combines their airports. Los Angeles is not, because it has no IATA metropolitan code, so the link above uses LAX. For this trio that loses nothing. Every one of the shared destinations is served from LAX, and Burbank, Orange County and Ontario add none. They matter for where people stay, which the Los Angeles airports guide covers.
A search from JFK, O’Hare and LAX alone returns around 90 shared destinations, about 20 fewer. Newark and LaGuardia add cities such as Omaha, Memphis and Montreal, and Chicago Midway adds Dallas Love Field and Houston Hobby. So it is worth searching NYC and CHI rather than one airport each.
Los Angeles has the shortest list of the three, around 185 destinations against around 275 for New York’s airports and around 290 for Chicago’s, and it sets the ceiling. New York and Los Angeles share around 120 destinations as a pair, and Chicago removes only ten of them: Auckland, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Singapore, Lima, Santiago, San Salvador, Casablanca and Paris Orly.
Around 65 of the shared destinations are in the US. The rest are in Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, plus Cairo and São Paulo.
Shared destinations that suit a group
Three things make a shared destination easier for a group: a short longest flight, a small gap between the flights, and several airlines on each route, which in most cases means more departure times and fares. On this list they point to different cities. Why this page starts from the flights rather than the map’s midpoint is covered in the guide to meeting in the middle vs meeting where the flights are.
Kansas City and the Midwest
Kansas City has the shortest longest flight on the list: about 3h10 from New York, 1h30 from Chicago and 3h15 from Los Angeles, all year, with three airlines listed from each city. Des Moines is close behind, at about 3h10, 1h25 and 3h20. Fayetteville (for Bentonville), Memphis, New Orleans and Omaha keep the longest flight to about 3h35 or less. The gap is large because Chicago is so close, but nobody flies more than about three and a half hours.
Texas and Denver
Austin is the Midway Point and runs all year from all three cities, with three or four airlines on each route. Oklahoma City and Dallas-Fort Worth score almost the same, so a small schedule change can move the pick between them. The Texas cities trade a longer flight from New York for a shorter one from Los Angeles. Houston Intercontinental has the most even split of any US city on the list, at about 3h40 from New York, 2h55 from Chicago and 3h10 from Los Angeles, a gap of about 45 minutes.
Denver, the usual pick for a coast-to-coast group, leans west for this trio, at about 4h30 from New York and 2h20 from Los Angeles. The Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth guides cover those cities as meeting places.
Central America and Cancún
The two most even splits on the list are in Central America. Guatemala City is about 4h40 from New York, 4h40 from Chicago and 4h55 from Los Angeles, all year. Belize City has all three flights within about 25 minutes, but only from October to April, with one airline on each route (United from Newark and O’Hare, Alaska from LAX). Liberia and San José in Costa Rica are within about 50 minutes, at about five to six hours each.
Cancún is less even, at about 4h10, 3h45 and 4h50, but it runs all year with three or four airlines on each route. The trade for an even split is a longer day: each of these puts at least two of the three cities more than four hours away.
Check which of these New York, Chicago and Los Angeles share in a given month
Europe and Asia
Around 15 European cities are on the list, and the Los Angeles flight is the long one to every one of them. It takes from about 10h10 to Dublin to 11h40 to Rome, against about 6h40 to 8h25 from New York. Most run all year. Barcelona is shared only in October 2026, because the Los Angeles route is listed for that month only.
In Asia it is the other way round. Los Angeles has the shortest flight to each of the six cities in East and Southeast Asia, while New York’s take from about 14h10 to 16h40. For this trio, Europe or Asia probably only makes sense when the destination is the point of the trip, since one of the three flies more than ten hours either way.
Seasonal routes
Around 75 of the shared destinations have nonstops from all three cities in every month of the next twelve. The rest depend on the month.
The mountain towns are mostly winter routes. Vail runs from December to April, and Hayden (for Steamboat Springs) and Montrose (for Telluride) from December to March. Kalispell (for Glacier National Park) and Anchorage are shared from May to September.
The Los Angeles flight is often the one that limits a route. Charleston, Jacksonville, Richmond, Greenville, Norfolk and Providence each depend on a single Breeze Airways route from LAX that does not run every month, and Norfolk and Providence are shared only from June to September 2027. Fort Myers (November to March) and West Palm Beach (October to April) are winter routes from Los Angeles. Maui is shared only in December and January, because of the Newark flight.
Dallas Love Field, Houston Hobby, San José and Grand Cayman are missing only September 2027, which is more likely a schedule the airlines have not loaded yet than a seasonal gap. Midway’s month filter shows the destinations all three cities reach in the month you pick. It cannot tell you whether an airline will add or drop a route after the schedules in the data.
Meeting in one of the three cities
The shared list leaves out the three home cities, but the group can meet in one of them. Chicago is about 2h30 from New York and 3h45 from Los Angeles. That longest flight is shorter than the longest to Austin and about half an hour more than the longest to Kansas City, and whoever lives in Chicago does not fly at all. New York is about 5h15 from Los Angeles, and Los Angeles about 6 hours from New York.
When the group is split evenly between the three cities, hosting in Chicago is probably the simpler answer, and a fourth city is worth it when the trip needs a beach or mountains.
The shortlist side by side
| Destination | From New York | From Chicago | From Los Angeles | Shared nonstops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas City | 3h10 | 1h30 | 3h15 | All year |
| Des Moines | 3h10 | 1h25 | 3h20 | All year |
| Houston Intercontinental | 3h40 | 2h55 | 3h10 | All year |
| Austin (Midway Point) | 4h00 | 2h40 | 2h45 | All year |
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 4h05 | 2h45 | 3h00 | All year |
| Denver | 4h30 | 2h40 | 2h20 | All year |
| Cancún | 4h10 | 3h45 | 4h50 | All year |
| Guatemala City | 4h40 | 4h40 | 4h55 | All year |
| Belize City | 4h45 | 4h25 | 4h35 | October to April |
| Dublin | 6h40 | 7h20 | 10h10 | All year |
| Tokyo Haneda | 14h25 | 13h20 | 11h55 | All year |
Flight times are the typical fastest scheduled nonstop from any airport of each city (the median across the months the route runs), rounded to 5 minutes, from Midway’s route data as of October 2026. “All year” means a nonstop from all three cities in each of the next twelve months.
After the shortlist
The shared list settles the flights. It does not settle the fares on your dates or who has the least time off, and in a group of three cities those usually decide between the last two or three options.
Enter your own departure cities in Midway to see every destination all of them reach nonstop, with the flight time from each.