US/Sicily Flights..help please!

Sister and I did exactly that schedule in April 2019. Flew into Rome on Delta, then four hours later flew Alitalia to Palermo. (Alitalia flies almost every hour during the day between FCO and Palermo.) We then flew Catania to Rome at the end of the trip. However, because I really like to be in my departure city the night before an expensive, intercontinental flight, we flew into Rome two nights before our Delta departure home. Sister had never been to Rome, anyway, so this gave her a brief overview of the city. Note: Taking an Alitalia flight from Catania to connect on the same day to a SEPARATELY BOOKED ticket from Rome to the States could be a bit risky. If there is any problem with that Alitalia flight, you are in trouble getting home. There was a post on this forum a few months ago from someone who was on a RS Sicily tour, and Mt. Etna blew just enough ash into the air to get all flights canceled out of Catania for several days, and folks on the tour were scurrying to find alternate ways out of Sicily.

When I visited Sicily last year, I flew R/T to Milan.

After a couple of nights in Milan, I flew with EasyJet to Palermo. I also flew EasyJet from Catania back to Milan.

Check flight prices, sometimes you can find better prices to Milan.

EasyJet has great prices as long as you book way in advance. Make sure you read their luggage policy carefully.

Enjoy your trip!

I flew an Air France flight to Rome at the end of last April, spent a couple of days sightseeing (thereby addressing the risks of the separate tickets) and then flew RyanAir to Catania. My return flight was Air France from Catania all the way.

If you don't mind flying the low-cost RyanAir, at the end of April they had many flights per day to choose from between Rome and Catania.

Edit: similar to Priscilla's point about EasyJet, check RyanAir's luggage policies carefully. My flight crew was very strict.

voglesby711, I dont think Delta ever flies into Sicily - they're always codeshared flights on their partner, Alitalia. You can book the whole trip US> FCO> Palermo and return Catania > FCO > US on Delta on one multi-city ticket - no need to cobble something together. The flight segments from/to FCO to Sicily will just be on Alitalia, and any checked bags will be checked through to Palermo. We did just this in February to join the RS tour.

When we did our Sicily tour we also found that there isn’t really any direct way to get there from the US. So we actually flew into Barcelona and spent a week there before taking a direct flight to Palermo. It was great to relax and get over jet lag prior to the tour.

Stan is essentially correct. Delta codeshares with Alitalia for the leg from Rome to Palermo (you can book the entire trip on the Delta site). But they do not codeshare to Catania, at least I can't find it. In fact I have tickets for your same month (12 April) returning 22 May from Atlanta.

I can see it on Delta website, (searching for ATL-CTA) codeshared segment from FCO to CTA is on Alitalia Fl 6605. I know strange things happen on searches. But thats with stop in JFK as well.

To coordinate with the RS tour, flying into Palermo and out of Catania (the bigger airport) matches wi the tour start and end. th

On our trips to Sicily, I just looked for where in Europe was the cheapest to fly to (in one case it was Brussels, in another case Munich). We had not been to Brussels before and were happy to spend a couple of nights there and sightsee. Then we took an inexpensive direct flight to Sicily and reversed the procedure on the way home.

We are also taking the Sicily tour in April. The best ticket prices I found were flying Delta into Milan and then Alitalia to Palermo. After the tour we're flying Alitalia from Catania to Milan and then back home on Delta. We're going to spend a night in Milan both before and after Sicily. If you decide to use Milan as your mainland connection city, be aware that Milan has 2 airports. Our Delta flights use MXP. Our Alitalia flights use LIN. This is not an issue for us with the extra nights in Milan that we built into our itinerary, but might complicate things if you would plan fly into and our of Milan on the same day.

We're signed up for the 4/19 tour. Is that the tour that you will be on?

I flew open-jaw into Palermo and out of Rome and a budget flight from Catania to the mainland for a few nights.

I would not advise planning to book a separate ticket from Catania to Rome to connect to a flight home. Catania airport delays and shut-downs due to ash from Mt. Etna are not unusual, but they are unpredictable.