Sicily

It really depends on where you are flying from and your budget. I know Lufthansa flies to PMO and CAT if you want to fly all on one ticket.

Thank you, we fly from a small airport so that makes it difficult. Did you use ITA airlines?

Back in 2018, I flew to Milan, spent a couple of nights there, then flew via easy jet to Palermo.
After my visit to Sicily I flew from Catania back to Milan.
Enjoy your time in beautiful Sicily!

It's what we did but we spent a few nights in Rome. If you are booking a flight to Rome and then a separate carrier (ITA, Ryanair, etc) to Palermo then having at least a nite in Rome is a good idea in case your flight to Rome is delayed.

On our last trip to Sicily, we flew into Milan and enjoyed a couple of days and finally managed to see the Last Supper.

Suggest no matter what you decide to do, give a couple of extra days in Palermo before the tour. It is an amazing city and the food is awesome.

To Sicily, we flew into Rome, then directly to Catania via ITA. Returned to Rome from Palermo. Easy, peasy.

We have flown many times from the eastern US to Sicily. Usually we fly to Milan, then to either Palermo or Catania depending on our first destination. There is a Sheraton Hotel in the Milan Malpensa airport. A couple times when our flight from the US arrived early morning and our Sicily flight was later in the day, we rented a room at the hotel for a few hours, showered, rested, and we were ready and refreshed for the Sicily flight.

I have been to Sicily twice before and did not fly in direct. Once from London, once from Krakow. i am going again next month and am routing through Zurich on Swiss Air. Swiss Air has direct flights to Palermo from Zurich. If you are going in the summer Neos Air ( an Italian airline) offers seasonal direct flights from JFK in New York to Palermo from June till the end of September. I believe it offers the direct service twice a week. I think I also read that United will offer seasonal service to Palermo in the summer too. Given that this is the year of the Jubilee in Rome, the Rome airport will probably be busier than ever. It is a short hop from Rome to Palermo but also look to see if you can find connecting flights out of some of the other bigger airline hubs like Milan, Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam, Madrid, Lisbon, Brussels, etc. Then pick what best meets your price and timing needs.

I chose to travel to Palermo from my home airport SEA on a SEA - LHR - FCO - PMO itinerary, without overnighting in Rome. It made for a lengthy inbound travel period what with the 3 flights but I didn't have the flexibility to add more time with an extended Rome layover, choosing instead to add my extra nights to Palermo before the tour start and to Catania at tour's end. On my return I flew CTA - MXP - LHR - SEA. My experience was fine, I had adequate time between flights (~ 2 to 2.5 hrs) and did not have any problems. I would prefer the luxury of taking only 2 flights in one period, meaning it would be 'best' to me to do an overnight to break up that 3 flights-in-a-row sequence should I have the time and money to do so. Out of the 8 RSTs I've taken, Sicily is my favorite, it's a fantastic tour. Buon viaggio!