We are registered for the Best of Sicily tour, start date in late April of 2025, with plans to independently explore the Puglia region of Italy prior to the tour. I've booked our round trip international air. We'll be flying into Rome and renting a car at the airport that we'll keep for the week that we're in Puglia. I've booked all the Puglia accommodations, and one pre-tour night at the tour hotel in Palermo. The challenge is figuring out how to get from Puglia to Palermo.
Bari and Brindisi are the two airport choices. I've been assuming we'll return the rental car at one of those airports and fly, but the flight options aren't great. There appear to be no non-stop flights from Bari to Palermo on any airline. There are one-stop options on ITA, but the choices aren't great. Some have very short layovers at Rome's airport (45 min. or 50 min). The one I found that has a more reasonable layover (1 hr. 25 min) doesn't depart Bari until 7:25 p.m. and doesn't get to Palermo until 11:05 p.m. So one question is, how risky is a 45 or 50 minute layover at FCO when flying from Bari to Palermo, all booked on one ticket, the airline being ITA? I would hope that the arrival gate for the first flight is right near the departure gate for the second flight, but these details of course are unknown.
Ryanair appears to have a non-stop flight from Brindisi to Palermo, but it's seasonal, and on only certain days of the week, and the booking calendar isn't showing Spring flights yet. Should I just wait until I can see if that's a good option for us? I'm a little hesitant about Ryanair, never having flown on that airline before. ITA has some one-stop options, but again, the layovers are tight: 45 or 55 minutes at FCO, unless we choose a very early departure (6:25 a.m.) and subject ourselves to a nearly 3 hour layover.
I've thought about just driving the car back to the Rome airport, returning it where we rented it (which should reduce the rental car cost), and taking a non-stop flight from FCO to Palermo, but it's a 5.5 hour drive. If we did that, we'd start our drive early in the day, make it a leisurely drive with some stops along the way, and fly to Palermo on a mid-evening flight from Rome. This option would eliminate the stress of worrying about a possible missed connection.
Any thoughts? Suggestions from others who have had to get themselves from Puglia to Palermo?