Flights from Seattle to Glasgow and return from Edinburgh to Seattle

Hi,

Have you checked Google flights? That will show you some options but it may be a bit early to start searching for September 2023. Have you considered spending some extra time in Edinburgh before or after the tour? I would highly recommend that if you have time. The tour does not give you much time in Edinburgh.

I don't have any issues flying on modern turboprops, and using DUB as a gateway would probably be a little cheaper, avoiding the UK's Air Passenger Duty, a departure tax. Also the benefit of US Immigration pre-clearance in Dublin.

A couple of the US carriers usually run seasonal service to EDI, but you'd face connecting on the east coast. And you'd still have the ADP.

My vote would be Aer Lingus.

I'd look at Icelandair round trip to Glasgow. It is easy enough to take the train from Edinburgh back to Glasgow. If you watch for sales you can get some good prices. Just know that in coach you will pay for everything. You won't have to worry about the connection in Iceland however, as it is very efficient. I have flown this airline 3 times and it has always been a positive experience. I try to look for sales which seem to happen once or twice a year.

I just did a connecting flight through Heathrow last month and I had a very positive experience. I don't think the issues that we saw earlier in the spring/summer will impact your trip next fall. I would keep British Airways in the loop as well. I've flown it about 6 times and once again it has been positive.

I was going to fly Aer Lingus once, but they cancelled the flight on me, so that is my only experience with them.

If you fly out of Vancouver BC, you can fly KLM to Glasgow (connecting in Amsterdam) and KLM Edinburgh to Vancouver (connecting in Paris). The reason I mention it is that you have plenty of time to track airfares for a bit and sometimes there can be significant savings from flying out of Vancouver.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Julile, you have received some very good ideas of how to travel from Seattle to Scotland. I’ll just say that I recently did something like what Carol suggested on IcelandAir. The only difference was that I flew out of London Gatwick back to Seattle. I took the 1 hour train ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh (and then I took a separate train to London). You aren’t asking about London but, I can attest that travel between Glasgow and Edinburgh is an easy train hop if you should find a really good deal on IcelandAir.

Happy hunting.

but the flight from Dublin to Glasgow and Edinburgh to Dublin is on a
small ATR72, a twin-engine turboprop which seems less than ideal

Why?

But as others have mentioned, Glasgow and Edinburgh are so close to each buying an open jaw ticket is not the worth the bother in my opinion. Just book a round trip to one of them.

I appreciate everyone's comments.

I’m sure you can find something that goes through Amsterdam as someone else suggested. I think I used Lufthansa, but KLM and other major airlines should all have options. The flights between Amsterdam and either Edinburgh or Glasgow are about an hour and there will likely be many options every day. I flew into Edinburgh and out of Glasgow, but it would have been just as easy to do it the other way around.

I just did your trip and flew from Delta/KLM Seatac to Amsterdam to Glasgow. I had a 3 hour layover. I returned from Edinburgh via Amsterdam. Amsterdam was a breeze as was Glasgow. I took the bus into Glasgow per Rick Steves-- tap your card for the 9 pound fare. Hotel was 5 blocks from the bus station. My return flight was early so I took a cab- 28 pounds. You do not need to get cash at the airport. Taxis, busses and everything does tap cards. Our guide recommended getting about 40 pounds in cash for small purchases or those few lunch spots that were cash only. Hope this helps.

JM
Absolutely this helps! Thank you. It's nice to know you flew out of Sea-Tac via Delta and didn't have any issues.

We flew in and out of Glasgow for our 13 day RS tour of Scotland on Iceland Air. It was super easy to get back to Glasgow for our return flight by train. Quick and pleasant. We flew through Rekjavik. I'd do it that way again.
And we flew out of Vancouver. Highly recommend it!

We had reserved an open jaw trip like yours SEA/GLA followed by EDI/SEA on British Air and we found it to be a pretty efficient method with the caveat that BA was cancelling domestic flights that affected us on both routes. Our SEA/GLA flight turned into a SEA/EDI flight, and our SEA/EDI flight changed to a much earlier flight with much shorter connection layovers. We were happy enough to repeat with BA this coming Spring with SEA/DUB/SEA.

Thank you both for your recommendations! It appears I have some good options! It certainly helps to know what others have done and their experience.