Flights to Sicily

Judy, I remembered this earlier thread: multi-city on ITA

Are you starting your trip in Rome, or is there a reason you're not booking a multi-city through Delta or another partner?

I am flying Delta roundtrip to Rome (multi city). Will not fly ITA any leg of it.
I planned to book Sicily flights separately.

Stan, I did find the thread you referred to about multi city and it looks like others are having same issue with ITA. I have had problems in trying to book ITA.

When I first booked Delta for roundtrip flight to Rome, I was on an ITA flight for one leg of the journey. I could not make seat selection. I followed Delta instructions to go to ITA website to make seat selection, but found it difficult to maneuver website and still could not select seat. I was not comfortable with situation so cancelled that flight and rebooked another flying Delta all the way and was able to select seats.

That’s the main reason I didn’t include Sicily flights for roundtrip Rome flights.

I booked tickets with easyJet for March. Bought them one way each since was arriving and departing from different airports. I've never flown on easyJet so I hope this is going to work for me. Good luck!

On a trip like this, it's possible a multi-city ticket won't save you any money compared to two one-way tickets. If you are planning to fly on to Sicily on the same day you arrive in Rome from the US, I would be inclined to stick with one-way tickets for the trips to and from Sicily. If you have a major problem with your transatlantic flight and miss the Rome-Sicily flight, I think the return leg of the Sicily multi-city ticket will be canceled. You won't have to worry about losing the Sicily-Rome return flight if it's a one-way ticket.

When we did this last spring we booked one-way tickets, Rome to Palermo and Catania to Venice (stop in FCO). It worked out fine, although we booked our tickets from Rome to Palermo for the day following because it was a long flight from NV to Rome with a layover in London.

To check multicity flights on ITA website, do this: In the search field type multitratta.
That's the advice I was given when I previously asked this question
and it worked like a charm. Good luck.

Thanks everybody! I will book one way tickets. Seems safest. Will stay in Rome two days prior to Sicily so there is a buffer if problems with US to Rome flights. Will fly Catanua to Rome and stay at airport hotel.
Thanks for help!

Last May we flew from London to Catania on Easy Jet, then Palermo to Naples 2 weeks later also on Easy Jet. I booked the flights separately in March, as 2 one way flights. Easy Jet was easy to book, we just paid for every upgrade/luggage/seat etc and it was still less than $100/person per flight. Other family members used Ryan Air from Rome to Catania and Catania to Rome also as separate one way tickets, mostly with no problem (3 arrived late from the US, missed their Ryan Air flight and that cost them an extra $200plus per person to take a later flight on Ryan Air).
My preference is Easy Jet. It seems like they had more flights Palermo-Rome and Ryan Air had more flights Catania-Rome. There are other budget airlines that fly those routes as well, but I don't know anything about them.
As for booking separate one way, vs round trip, I didn't see any price advantage to round trip and there may be a disadvantage, in that if something were to happen and you had to change your first flight, you might lose the good price on the return flight if it was a single round trip ticket.

Good to hear. Looks like for our October trip, we'll book an Air France/Delta roundtrip nonstop Boston/Rome (FCO), then book a one-way Rome/Catania on ITA. Taking the train from Ortigia/Siracusa all the way up to Rome Termini station, with a couple stops in between for a few days each---Taormina, Salerno--with a highlight being the train/ferry across the Strait of Messina!

I thought it would be so easy to book one way flights on ITA for Rome to Palermo, then Catania to Rome. However, last night after I entered the Passenger Info and clicked on Next to go to payment, it froze. Could go no further. There was nothing noting anything incorrect or missing in passenger info. I logged out of site and logged back in at last a dozen times. Same result.

Tried Catania flight and same results.

There is nowhere to click on for help with booking.

Tried again this morning and got same results.

There is an email address and phone number for complaints. I had to cut and paste address and have sent email asking fir help.

Have any of you had this problem? By the way, the fare went up again this morning!

I booked Ryanair! No problem! One way tickets Rome to Palermo and Catania to Rome.