DFW to Switzerland

Jonathan,
Usually the airlines show the connections so its not like you will have to book each segment yourself. In most cases there would be just one flight leaving to your European destination, but several flights from different cities in the USA arriving at that hub for the flight. In Delta's case it would be either New York or Atlanta. I usually allow 2 hours for delays at the departure gate and finding my gate etc for the connecting flight but you may find that from your city the time between flights could be more or less.

When you book your filght, just book it DFW to Zurich or Geneva, whichever airport you're going to. It will give all the segments of the flight together.

You will need more time to change planes in Europe going over, and more time to change planes in the U.S. when returning (Immigration on both of those and customs also on return.)

Here’s another piece of info that might be helpful or at least worth knowing about. As you’ve already noted, there are no non-stops from DFW, and you’ll see a lot of codeshare flights. Northwest will actually be KLM connecting in Amsterdam, American will be American to London then BA to Zurich, or Swiss will be United to Chicago then Swiss to Zurich. Whatever the codeshare arrangement, the itineraries offered will already take connections and connection times into account for you. You’ll book it just like you were booking a flight on a single airline.

Just one word of advice for you on Delta, since it just happened to me - make sure you regularly check your itinerary to stay aware of any changes. We were originally booked from Tampa through JFK to Zurich. At some point they changed our flights and had us landing in JFK about an hour after our flight to Zurich left; they hosed our return flights about the same way. They did not notify either of us via phone or e-mail. My friend had signed up for TripIt and got an alert from TripIt about the change.

I know for a fact they had our e-mail address because we got our flight confirms via e-mail after the original booking. When we called, they were very helpful, rebooked everything right there, no issues at all; it was just a shock and a little worrisome until we got it straightened out.

It's good advice to keep an eye on your itinerary any time you are traveling, obviously, but I've never had an issue like this one where there was no notification at all either.

If you're using two separate flights vs a connecting flight, I'd recommend 2 hours at least. In this time of airline inconsistencies, you never know when one airline is likely to change its flight times.