Advice for flights - Zurich or Basel for senior father

Is there some advantage to meeting up in Basel? You might consider a variation on #3: meet up at Zurich airport. What does your father say?

I don’t see any problem at all for your father to take the Zurich Airport train directly to Basel in as little as 70 minutes. Almost everyone in Switzerland speaks English so your father should have no problem getting any needed help in buying the train ticket and boarding the train for Basel at Zurich Flughafen. You also could buy the train ticket online from SBB and forward it to your father’s cell phone.
Alternatively, if you’re leaving straight away for Florence once your father arrives in Switzerland traveling from Zurich to Florence saves 60-90 minutes on the train.

Don't transit at Heathrow. It's notorious for losing passengers' luggage. Also, he may have to change terminals.

Zurich is far easier to navigate through.

I’m 73, nonstop to Zurich and if you don’t want to meet him at the Zurich airport, why not have a driver with sign meet him and shuttle him to your hotel in Basel, not much more than airfare from Heathrow to Basel and less stress unless he’s comfortable catching the right train that is direct.

A quick look at the Sbb website and picking a random day and time shows that the Basel-Florence route requires a change in Zurich. So it seems to make a lot more sense for you and your mother to meet your father in Zurich, and proceed all together from there. Simple and easy. No reason for him to go to Basel, only to back track again thru Zurich.

Option #3 makes the most sense, if you have to go back through Zurich on the way to Florence.

Years ago my girlfriend and mother ended a Rhine River cruise in Basel - I was asked to help with the flight details. I found that SWISS offered a multi-modal ticket which included the train from Basel to the Zurich airport, then the flight back to Los Angeles. They found it extremely easy to navigate the airport once they got to Zurich, so I'm sure your father's experience would be the same, if he decided to travel on to Basel.

Thank you all so much!! Anyone know if the train from Basel to Florence is more or less scenic than the one from Zurich to Florence? My dad is most excited for scenic train ride.

Unless I'm mistaken you won't get a train that goes all the way from Basel to Florence. You will get a ticket for that route, but it will require a change of trains in Zurich and in one other place; likely Milan. But I think you are just asking which is the most scenic part of the trip? IMO the most scenic part would be thru the mountains between Zurich and Milan. But about 20 minutes of that section is going thru the Gotthard Tunnel.

If you can break up the journey from Zurich to Florence you could take the train route that’s my favorite in all of Switzerland— the UNESCO World Heritage site that is the Bernina Express train route. One of the Top 10 most scenic train rides in the world, it runs past castles on green mountainsides from Chur to St. Moritz and then through the most spectacular Alps mountain scenery from St. Moritz to Tirano, Italy. Regular trains also travel this same route— so any train travels the same tracks.
Zurich to Tirano takes about 6 hours. ( Zurich to Chur 1:30; Chur to St.Moritz 2hrs; St Moritz to Tirano 2:30; Tirano to Varenna-Esino 1:30). You could overnight on the shores of Lake Como by travelling another 90 minutes to Varenna-Esino and staying overnight. Bellagio is a 15- minute ferry ride from Varenna.
Florence is just 3 train hours further from Varenna-Esino via Milan.
The Basel to Florence train routes are faster, but the tunnels the trains travel through to save time cuts out any views you might have had while the trains are underground.
www.TheTrainline.com shows train schedules.

Don't transit at Heathrow. It's notorious for losing passengers'
luggage. Also, he may have to change terminals.

And he would need to apply for an ETA.

In order, I vote for #3, 2, and then 1. This is assuming your father has little international travel experience.

1. requires little stress on his part. And he won't have to battle fatigue thinking on arrival. You can do the thinking.
2. requires some stress, but not much, while he gets back into the departure part of Terminal 5. However, there are purple people standing everywhere to help him know where to go. Most of BA flights (all I've ever taken) fly into and out of Terminal 5. Just check the flights for the terminal before you order. I like to limit the types of transportation on transport days. Also, BA is a partner to American (One World) so that shouldn't be a ticket problem either. I am partial to this one as BA is my airline of choice in Europe and T5 is my terminal at Heathrow. I transfer here whenever I can. An ETA is $7.00 completed online, I believe. I haven't gone for mine for the spring. I think it starts on January 8th.
3. Two different types of transport. Will he be up to changing gears after a long, overnight flight to Zurich?

However, if he's used to traveling. No problem. Why not ask him which one he prefers? Seventy-four is still a young senior. (I hope...70 here)

A scenic route from Zurich HB is via Goeschenen. Change trains in Cadenazzo and Milano Central. The standard route uses the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which goes completely under the Alps. The route via Goeschenen is older and mostly over the Alps and takes about an hour longer.

Another scenic train ride is the Arlberg route from Zurich to Innsbruck. From Innsbruck, you head south through the Brenner pass down to Verona. You may have to make a switch at Verona for the relatively short trip down to Florence. Perhaps there are trains directly all the way through from Innsbruck, but I did not check.