How easy is the air to rail connection from Zurich to Lucerne? Can you board train at airport or is a metro required to get to a downtown station for onward travel?
Trains go frequently from Zurich airport to Zurich main station where you can get a train to Luzern. The trains from the airport arrive at the underground platforms at Zurich main station. You go up one level on the escalator to a corridor where you go to the escalator marked for the platform for your Luzern connection. Take that escalator up and you will be standing next to your connecting train. Get on board.
You buy a ticket at the airport station to Luzern and all the connections are included.
We had a direct train from th airport it did stop at the main Zurich station, but we did not have to change trains.
At least for the time being, there are no more direct trains to Luzern from the airport. This may change in the future, but i do not see any for the rest of 2024.
The airport is served by regular trains, not metro.
Zurich does not have a Metro system, just S-Bahns, trams, and buses.
We took the train from the Zurich Airport to Lucerne and it was very easy. There were signs in the airport to get to the train. The train station is located below Terminal B at the airport and it takes about an hour to get to Lucerne. I believe there are machines to buy your tickets but we went to the train office in the building because we had questions and we bought our tickets there. They were very nice explaining the various tickets. We bought first class tickets. I'm not sure we needed them going to Lucerne as the train seemed pretty empty but going back to Zurich after our tour people who didn't have first class tickets were sitting on the steps because it was so crowded.