Air travel Seattle to Palermo... Catania back to Seattle

We are traveling to Sicily for the April RS tour and decided to fly into Rome for a few days and then catch a flight to Palermo and out to Catania back to Rome since the airfare to Palermo on Delta was prohibitively expensive. We will have a few days in Rome on the front end of the trip but it still saves money and there is plenty to do in Rome despite our previous visits. We have a fairly tight connection back to Rome on the last day of the tour but since we are retired we have some flexibility. I think we are booked on Alitalia so hope there are no problems. We are flying Delta into and out of Rome. Good luck! Ferreting through airline options requires skill and patience!!

Thank you, Lynda. That's a super approach and we'll explore. I was cautioned to avoid Alitalia, but may not be possible, eh? We're retired, too:)
All the best,
Bob

We are taking the B of S tour in May-June. We are flying Delta out of SEA to Paris connecting flight to Rome where we will spend 10 days while there taking a 7 day RS Rome tour. We then fly on to Palermo for the BofS tour. When the tour is over in Catania, we will spend an extra night there due to the difficult connection flight times. We then fly back thru Rome to Paris where we overnight so that we can make an easy connection for a non-stop flight back to SEA. We chose to go thru Paris so that we could get a non-stop flight home. If we were to fly home out of Rome we were going to have to stop somewhere in the US first before flying on to SEA. We booked these 5 flights all thru Delta. We have received two changes from Delta so far for 2 of those flights. One advantage we find in 14 trips to Europe in 16 years is that by booking all of our flights via one airline that when anything changes or goes wrong, we know who to contact.

Mahalo, Charlie. That's a great option and really sounds well laid out. Hmmm. Wonder if we should explore Rome RS Tour before or after Sicily as well. BTW, heading to Oahu in 9 days! Already feeling the waters of windward side:)

Bob, We are taking this tour in the beginning of September, and I was going crazy trying to figure out the air travel for this trip. I was considering going from SEA to MXP (Milan), spending the night in Milan and then taking EasyJet from Milan to Palermo. Lufthansa has some great prices going from SEA to MXP, although it is not a direct flight. EasyJet has a number of flights that go from Milan to Palermo and from Catania to Milan. Ryanair also has flights from Catania to Milan. Please note that EasyJet does not yet have a schedule out for November, but you can look at their October schedule to get an idea. I also wanted to avoid Alitalia because I was not confident about the future of the airline (not to mention the possibility of strikes). I also looked at taking a flight that went from SEA to LGW or LHR which would be direct. The plan was also to spend the night in a hotel and then take one of those low-cost European airlines to Palermo - same plan for the flight back.

At least you are taking this flight from Seattle, We need to fly out from Spokane, which makes the air travel to Sicily even more torturous! My flights are booked, and they are very interesting to say the least!

Good options, Terri. Milan is an intriguing connection. We've flown Ryan and Easy jet.. good on $...just remember to bring your own drinks/food and ensure your luggage meets their specs:) Yes, we're down in Oly, so only 60 miles to SEA. We may connect in Rome...looking at the RS Rome Tour...we'll see. Have a great trip!

Hi Bob,

We're doing the Sicily tour in late April leaving out of PDX and, like you, had a very difficult time choosing flights. We ended up going with a quite expensive Delta/KLM connection thru AMS that uses Alitalia from Rome to Palermo then a budget outfit called Transavia back from Catania to Rome. I, too, am wary of Alitalia and have no idea what to think of Transavia but I'm counting on the fact that since we paid the higher fare to book straight thru on Delta rather than saving a bundle booking it piecemeal ourselves, Delta will make sure that we end up on some sort of reasonable flights, if not the exact ones we have booked. We're flying into Palermo a couple of days early to try and get adjusted by the start of the tour.

Hope this helps but from our area there really are just no great (or inexpensive) choices that I could find.
Will

There is nothing wrong with booking with Alitalia.
The company will be sold to one of the main entities interested in its acquisition:
Lufthansa
Air France-Klm
Easyjet
Cerberus (an American private equity fund)
Due to Alitalia’s need of restructuring, especially its bloated payroll, after the sale there will be likely lots of layoffs announced. That is not happy news for the Italian electorate, therefore the Italian authorities are delaying the sale to after the national elections of March 4.
So the Alitalia company won’t disappear or be liquidated. It will likely be smaller and part of a larger group, but you are not going to lose your money if you buy a ticket from them.

Thank you, Will for the PDX option and confirmation of the difficulty of flying to Sicily from our beloved Northwest. And, thank you Roberto for providing context to the previous caution on Alitalia we received. That enables us to look for still other options. I tell you, this forum is a rock star tool for RS travelers! Again, wow!

Have you looked at Condor Airlines? They fly nonstop from SeaTac to Frankfurt. In early November they do it 4 times a week and in late November they're down to 3 times per week. I use them often - I like to get over nonstop and then I'll spend a night in Frankfurt and fly to my final city the next morning. Norwegian also has a nice non-stop to London Gatwick from SeaTac that I'm trying this year. I'm doing the reverse of you - I'm flying from Catania to Gatwick on EasyJet, spending the night in London and then taking the Gatwick/SeaTac nonstop home.

Both airlines price out really well.

We took this tour in October and loved it!! We had the same problem with airline schedules and so we decided to make a destination stop on both sides instead of just wasting a day trying to work a flight to Palermo. So we flew from PDX to Barcelona and spent a week on the Costa Brava. I used skyscanner.com to get a flight from Barcelona to Palermo the day before the tour started. It was around $50 pp. At the end of the tour we flew from Catania to London for a few days and then home to PDX.

It’s not easy to get to and from Sicily, but so worth it!

We were on this tour in April 2016. We flew from Boston to Rome on Aer Lingus and stayed two nights befor continuing on to Palermo on Alitalia. We arrived in Palermo on the day before the tour started. After the tour, we took Alitalia from Catania to Rome,stayed one night and flew from Rome to Boston on Aer Lingus. Note that Ryanair also flies from Rome to Sicily.

The Aer Lingus flight was so inexpensive compared to other flight options that it paid for the extra nights in Rome. We also avoided a very early flight from Catania at the end of the tour. Milan is another good choice for an intermediate stop, since there are frequent non stops to Sicily.

Thank you, Valerie, April and Bob for providing excellent options. We've decided to add the Best of Rome in 7 days tour prior to Sicily. That way, we'll have an easier time getting to Rome, then take a Alitalia, Ryan or Easy Jet over and back....and get over our jet lag in fabulous Rome! All roads lead there, I'm told:) Couldn't have ferreted this out without your collective assistance. Anita and I are most appreciative! Hope we meet ya'll on a future tour.

We are on the Best of Sicily tour in May just after finishing the Southern Italy tour. We will leave from Naples and fly Alitalia to Palermo. I know there is also a train option. I would vote for flying from Seattle to Rome, spending a few days, then flying Alitalia to Palermo. I am sure that you have already planned to arrive in Palermo at least a day ahead (to allow for delays, train strikes, whatever). We have encountered all of the above on previous trips in Italy.

This will not help Bob but it might be useful to others. British Airways has direct flights to Sicily (both Catania and Palermo) from London, it the flights are seasonal. They do run in May, but not November.

This makes BA a good option for anyone starting in one of the cities with direct flights to London. On the Weat coast this would include Vancouver, Seattle, 3 Bay Area airports, LAX, and San Diego.