Flights to Europe -- different airlines each way?

I don't see why not. Just buy a one-way ticket on each airline and make sure you leave enough time for yourself to do everything.

The only downside would be the price. One ways tend to be more expensive than round trips.

Booking two one-way flights is generally much more expensive,,although Iceland Air is one the few airlines that does not charge extra for one-way flights ( it is usually close to half the RT fare).

IF they can find another Irline that will get them to Zurich earlier, and not charge an inflated fare for the one-way, it would work. But I wouldn't know which to suggest.

Maybe they could try a 3-leg Multi-city bookingmon Kayakmand see what comes up. JFK to Zurich, Amsterdam to Rekjavik, Rekjavik to JFK. Expedia sometimes mixes airlines like that.

You can book a multiple destination return fare on booking sites like Travelocity or Expedia JFK to ZRH outbound and AMS to JFK return. And if that doesn't work for you, pay a travel agent to do the work and book it for you on one ticket.

Looking on both Ita matrix and Kayak, this is not going to happen for any reasonable amount of money except via IcelandAir legs. Keflavik does not play well with others, and even if you detoured outbound to, e.g., London, and then took an EasyJet from there to Zurich, you would still be getting to Zurich late unless you overnight in London for an early flight to Zurich the next morning (which adds other serious complexities). Which in my opinion really complicates this.

How late can you accept arriving in Lucerne? It appears to be one hour by train from Zurich Airport, with trains every 1/2 hour, with the IcelandAir flight arriving there at 1 PM. Would jiggering your schedule to stay an extra day in Lucerne be feasible?

The trans-Atlantic combo tickets put together by on-line agencies tend to stick to the airline alliance groupings. British Air and American can be found together, for instance, or United-Lufthansa-Air Canada, or Delta-KLM/Air France. Going one-way with one alliance and returning with another is much less common. Feeder lines connecting at the main ports for trans-ocean flights do cross alliances sometimes. And I've bought an international flight connecting to a different alliance for a second long-distance flight (not your situation.)
The alliances, by the way, are Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam. Wikiipedia explains it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_alliance

Thank you all for your quick replies!

I do have a travel agent I was working with, but she seems hesitant to look at two different airlines. I'm not sure I can get any additional time off work, so extending the beginning is problematic, and we join a river cruise after our time in Lucerne, so that's a set deadline. Had hoped to get into Zurich early morning to give us a solid half day of "sightseeing" once we deal with Customs, the train, and our hotel.

I think it would be prudent to revisit the options for flights (as well as possibly begging for an extra day) and see if I can do two one-ways that won't break the bank!

So glad you are here for guidance! Allison

Allison - I see you are new here, so I am going to make an assumption, don't take offense if I am wrong, that you may be new to flying to Europe. Unfortunately, we travelers cannot always get what we want, the airlines dictate our actions. And they don't act logically. There is no rational reason for any airline to not sell you a one way ticket at half (or marginally more) than a round-trip. Yet for all the transatlantic flights, this is pretty much an impossibility, and this is done only at an immense mark-up. And there only so many ways that are available to split tickets between 2 unrelated carriers. Then add to this the whim of flight scheduling. You can approach your basic issue of getting in to Zurich early enough for your needs by looking at Zurich Airport's arrival schedule and see who flies in when and from where. And then see what you may need to do to hook this into what you can connect to.

It is unfortunate, but you will likely have to amend your plans some - either give up on Zurich sightseeing, or give up on an Iceland stopover until another trip where that would hook together better. Also please consider that what you want to do that one day when you arrive n Zurich will be on full jet-lag and probably most of an all-nighter. You will find yourself with limited mental and physical abilities that afternoon!

One more suggestion that may help. Can you more or less as easily fly out of any of the 3 NYC airports? if so, do your searching entering "NYC" not JFK. Many more options will come up.

Good luck!

Thanks, Larry. I am new to the boards here, but have flown to Europe several times before and do my own travel plans routinely. But this trip got much more complicated and I've never tried to book "one-way" flights before (always into and out of the same city/airport). Newark isn't really convenient and further away (especially coming home very late post-trip), and LaGuardia doesn't usually have much, which is why I narrowed to JFK only. Glad to have your comments to work with!

Have you tried using multicity searches on kayak.com? You can filter in many different ways. I doubt, however, that there is a cheap way to do thin.