Buying airline tickets at the airport

Sure it is feasible but the issue is, will space be available? That is hard to forecast and you pay the walk up fare. Now you could book easyJet in advance with the flex-fare so you could change it if necessary. The capacity on any airline is limited. Not like a train leaving every hour with 500 seats. So my question to you is why would you not fly open jaw - into Rome and home from Amsterdam? Probably cheaper than RT Amsterdam plus the extra flights.

Do you plan to spend any time in Amsterdam? From the summary you've provided it would seem that you don't, and therefore another option would be to book the outgoing flight from the US to Rome (connecting wherever the fare is cheapest and/or most convenient for you), then booking your return to the US from Florence. Per Frank's comment, It's probably worth comparing an open jaw booking versus using the discount carriers as you propose - might actually be cheaper and more convenient to do it that way, but you'll have to plug in your own proposed travel dates to get an apples-to-apples comparison.

The concept of »commuter flight« is virtually non-existent in Europe. The overwhelming part of the people on board of a plane have arranged their tickets weeks, if not months in advance.
And you'll pay for the privilege of taking the first flight available. I checked at EasyJet: a ticket bought a week in advance for Rome can be got for some EUR 75; one for next Saturday will set you back EUR 200. With KLM/Alitalia the difference can be between EUR 164 and EUR 600 or more.
I don't see why it would be a problem to get tickets for flights between Amsterdam and Italy.

Those both sound like better options. I'm having a bear of a time trying to cobble together outgoing and incoming flights from and to Amsterdam on my own that correspond with the timing needed for the direct flight from the U.S,

So Icelandair is our favorite airline, and ideally we'd like to fly Saga class from the U.S. into Europe, then economy on the continent. Saga class is cheap from the U.S. to London or Amsterdam, but costs several thousand more dollars to do a round trip from the U.S. to Milan, which is why I got this idea to do fly into Amsterdam then hop a commuter flight or something. But I'm about to take my head off trying to piece together little one-off flights from Amsterdam to Rome, then from Florence to Amsterdam. I guess I could always do round-trip into Rome and stop trying to jury-rig it to do Florence to Amsterdam...

Yeah it's not a problem getting the flights, the problem arises when I try to get the proper timing of flights to give us enough breathing room at Schiphol to catch our flight back to the U.S. from there, if that makes sense. The flights I'm finding from Florence - Amsterdam are either horrendously expensive or incredibly long and won't work with the Icelandair flight out.

Maybe it's time to re-assess my "brilliant" plan. ;o)

You will find it much easier to hop on a train from Florence to Milan or Rome to find a cheap flight to Amsterdam. If it was me, I'd plan on spending a night in Amsterdam when trying to match separate airline tickets. Too many variables to make a reliable connection.

One of the problems you're facing is that Florence is a small airport. Try Pisa. It's just down the road and much larger in terms of flights.

The journey from the Florence train station to Pisa's airport will take about and hour and a half.

allora,

While that concept might sound good in theory, it doesn't usually work that way in reality. A few points to keep in mind.....

• many of the budget airlines don't actually have a sales point at the airport, as tickets are all sold online. In the case of easyJet, they don't even have check-in staff anymore, but only enough to man the luggage drop facility.
• Especially with easyJet, every flight I've been on has been packed FULL! Therefore there were NO seats available for "walk-up" passengers.
• Most budget airlines base their pricing on a "sliding scale", with the cost increasing as the flight fills. Therefore, even if they did have a few seats available, they'd likely be dreadfully expensive.

Could you elaborate on the "challenge" you've had with the regional flights? Depending on "when" you're looking next year, they may not have schedules posted yet. The easiest solution for the situation you've described, would be to try to find code share flights with the airline you're using from the U.S. to Amsterdam. That way your checked luggage will go to your final destination, and you won't have to worry about delays in getting to your connecting flight as if your first flight is late, the airline will have to get you to your destination.

Have you tried the stopover option? I've played a little bit with the Icelandair site with a random date in April, and with a stopover in Reykjavik a return flight from Seattle to Milan would come at some USD 1200.

OK took some advice from here and looked into flying in and out of Milan instead of Amsterdam, then seeing if I could time it so we could take the train up from Florence to Milan the morning of our departure. I found the most incredibly cheap business class tickets on Luftansa that I am still in a little bit of shock. Leaves Milan at 13:10, and we can take the train up from Florence and be in Milano Centrale by 8:40, the grab a taxi to Malpensa in plenty of time.

Seriously in shock over the cost of these tickets. Is everyone having a mega-sale right now??

Thank you everyone for your sage advice and help with this!!

Allora, you do realize that the Milan airport is over an hour from the train station, Centrale? A taxi will be very expensive. Why not take the train since it goes twice and hour and takes about an hour.

A few thoughts to add to Frank's comments.....

• As mentioned, using a taxi from Milan to Malpensa will be an expensive option. Use the Malpensa Express or even the Malpensa Shuttle if you want to save money.
• Do the flights you're planning on using depart from Malpensa or Linate?
• When you buy rail tickets from Florence to Milan, you'll need to know the specific stations you'll be using, since both cities have several.

Thanks for your concern! I do know how far the airport is from the train station and the difference between Linate and Malpensa, and I do know where to catch the train in Florence... Santa Maria Novella. I've traveled from Milan and within Milan many, many times, and within and from Florence even more.

I do very much appreciate the help, though!