What is the best airport to fly into Sicily?

Do you know what cities you'd like to visit? We flew in and out of Catania. We flew Delta to Rome and then Catania. The Catania airport was fine. It very rarely is affected/closed due to Mt. Etna activity. Depending on your route, you could fly into one city and out of the other. If you don't plan on visiting Catania, then you could use the Palermo airport. I believe the Catania airport was much closer to city center than Palermo's.

Enjoy your trip.

It may depend on your day of travel. Catania is more likely to have more flights. Palermo may only have one per day, depending on the day for your route. With only one connection, your choice of airlines will be limited. Have a look at Google Flights for both airports and look at a range of dates if possible.

We too flew in and out of Catania since there were better connections to it from where we flew out of. Also, because our flight arrived just before dusk and we were renting a car, our hotel was significantly closer to the airport than it would have been if we had arrived in Palermo.

Flying to Catania there was a layover in Munich while the layover was in Frankfurt on the return flight. On that trip we flew United airlines.

I like to do a search on matrix.itasoftware.com/flights to give me an overview of the possibilities. You can't book the flight(s) here but you can get a good idea of what's possible.

We flew into Catania and out of Palermo. There was no one layover option for us so we went into Rome first and spent two nights and then spent the last night near the Rome airport.

I’m planning on going to Sicily in February out of SFO and they don’t have the greatest flights. But then again, I am pretty picky! I didn’t realize it was kind of a headache to get to Sicily. But I’m definitely going to fly out of Catania because they seem to have better flights home.

Delta flies from SFO to Catania with one layover in the US. The flight departs SFO at 7am…arrives JFK at 3:35pm…then departs JFK at 4:45pm and arrives the next morning into Catania at 7:55am.
The one hour layover at JFK gives me pause, however, in case your SFO flight is delayed for any reason. That being said, this flight is 90% on time and 7% with a 30 minute or less delay.

Lufthansa, Swiss Airlines, and Turkish Air also have one-layover flights, but their layovers are in Europe.

Catania and Palermo, on opposite sides of the island are your two options, but many connections go through Rome. If you will be visiting both areas, then just go with what makes the best connection for the time period you want to book. For example, on Delta, I found good flights (and prices) into Catania for a trip we are looking at next spring.

Another tact that I, and others, have used, is round trip to Rome, spending a day or two there, then budget airlines to Sicily. I have also flown Catania to Naples as part of a trip, revisiting that area before flying home from Rome.

Note that Catania airport can be shut down if Mt Etna is spewing ash, and the wind is blowing in that direction.

Catania is a larger airport than Palermo. They are both good airports. It depends on where you’re going in Sicily. We flew into Palermo, out of Catania.

Doesn't it depend on factors entirely individual to you?

You can look at various flight connections and prices and you can determine which side of the island is closer to the things that interest you.

Thanks for all. your replies! First, we will be staying in Castellemare which is our family's birth city. From there we're still planning on day trips.

Then PMO is your airport.