Get a refund and fly United

If we look into tickets on other airlines, which carriers would you most recommend (flying into Florence, Milan, or Rome from SFO...)?

Thanks!

I fly British Airways from SFO to Spain with a connection in Heathrow. Two flights a day from SFO..one in the afternoon and one in the evening..with a toddler that may be a good time to fly..close to bedtime...British Airways has a discount for children too.

BA requires that the infant be hand-held (not in its own seat) during take-off, landings, and periods of turbulence. This sounds like a familiar requirement on European carriers. Lufthansa apparently wants to avoid the hassle of getting the parents to hold the child during such periods, and the ban on infant seats is a simple way to avoid that hassle.

Why not just use a US airline? AA, UA, DL, CO, and US all fly non-stop from US to Italy. Forget about using the European airlines for now.

If we end up in coach, which of the U.S. airlines would you most recommend?

Seriously, they're all about the same, unless you care about things like free alcohol (one drink on DL is free) or personal video screens.

What's more important is transit time and transit point. From the west coast, it means early morning departure, then a connection in Chicago or the East Coast in the afternoon. Not a lot of leeway, and that will eliminate some of your choices.

It also depends on where you want to fly Italy. There are more flights to MXP and FCO, of course, but DL also flies to PSA and VCE, and USAirways also to VCE. Perhaps those are important.

I looked at your other posts. You mainly wants to go to Florence, right?

I'd take DL to Pisa.
DL414 SFO JFK 9:00a-5:44p
2:26 layover
DL136 JFK PSA 8:10p-10:55a

DL137 PSA JFK 1:35p-5:05p
1:35 layover
DL149 JFK SFO 6:40p-10:34p

This flight is only 4 days a week, and the layover on the return seem tight. But it's still doable.

If you worry about the return layover, you can depart from Rome on DL earlier.

There are many options, like the really good one via Cincinnati:

DL33 FCO CVG 10:45a-3:30p
1:55 layover
DL37 CVG SFO 5:25p-7:11p

Timings are basically perfect for this flight and CVG is an easier airport to transit on the way back from Europe will less chance of a delay.

American also has some handy flights (and depending on when you fly, they will be using Heathrow rather than Gatwick if you go through London). You should be able to get to either Rome or Milan with a minimum number of connections (of course, if you want to go through Germany to connect to Florence, you're more or less stuck with Lufthansa).

You can fly United to Frankfurt, but once you get there you fly Lufthansa to either Milan or Rome. You can also fly United to Washington, DC and from there to Rome. Personally, I prefer taking the intercontinental flight first, and the shorter European flight second.

Thank you all for the great feedback and advice. We are going to rebook with a U.S. carrier because it seems like the safest route to go given how mobile our daughter is...

We will either take United through Frankfurt (interestingly, UA has reserved seats for our daughter on Lufthansa planes for the Frankfurt to FLR portion of the trip and who knows what will happen when we actually check in for those flights but at least she will be in her own seat for the longer transcontinental flights), or we will take American Airlines through Chicago to ROME, or Delta through Cincinnati to Rome.

We can upgrade on United to BIZ class at least from SFO to FRA, but we have no chance of upgrading on the other airlines.

My hesitation with United has always been people complaining about their "older" planes. Is this a legit concern?

Do you think UA, AA, and DELTA are equally safe or is one a better airline than the others?

thanks again!

If you fly UA to FRA, you'll connect to a LH flight from there to Italy (despite having a UA flight number). The operating carrier will dictate rules onboard, so you will have issues with the carseats.

I'll keep it simple and just fly a US carrier directly to Italy and avoid a European connection.

I just asked you some questions on your other post-why not keep it to one post to make things easier?

Let me ask you this question?

When was the last time you heard of a UA plane just falling out of the sky?

With the exception of 9/11 the last major US based airline crash was AA Airbus 300 about a month or 2 after 9/11.

Some majot planes crashed since, Boeings, Airbuses, Embraers, but when you compare the number of people killed in air crashes to the number of people that fly everyday, the chances of you being killed are slim to none.

I actually loved the advertisment in one of the last Time Magazines from Allstate insurance. Basically it said and I quote:

<i>If 12 fully jumbo jets (I believe they meant 747s) crashed every year, something would be done about it</i>

and it's followed by,

<i>EVERT YEAR nearly 6000 teens die in car crashes</i>


When was the last time you heard of 12 747s crashing in one year?

UA, AA. LH, BA, JL, CX, QF and on and on, etc.etc. are very safe.

At the end of the day, these are wo/men made machines and are maintened by wo/men, so it is possible that something can go wrong on occasion, but the aviation guildelines that most major countries require of the airlines have made flying the safest way of travel.

And if one's really worried about the age of the aircraft, UA's IAD-FCO uses a 777, which is pretty new.

It's fair to ask about safety records and fair to ask about age of equipmen.

It's misleading to compare 12 jumbo jets to car crashes as if that proved that planes are safe and cars are not. I deplore deplore deplore deaths of teens in car crashes, but as a percentage of the number of cars on the road, it's just not comparable to compare 12 jumbo jets as a percent of the total number in use.

equipmenT (although age of &quot;equipmen&quot; is an interesting concept).

<b>The fatal incident rate has declined steadily ever since, and, since 1997 the number of fatal air accidents has been no more than 1 for every 2,000,000,000 person-miles flown (e.g., 100 people flying a plane for 1000 miles counts as 100,000 person-miles, making it comparable with methods of transportation with different numbers of passengers, such as one person driving a car for 100,000 miles, which is also 100,000 person-miles), making it one of the safest modes of transport.

It is often reported that air travel is the safest in terms of deaths per passenger mile. The National Transportation Safety Board (2006) reports 1.3 deaths per hundred million vehicle miles for travel by car, and 1.7 deaths per hundred million vehicle miles for travel by air.[1] These are not passenger miles. If an airplane has 100 passengers, then the passenger miles are 100 times higher, making the risk 100 times lower. The number of deaths per passenger mile on commercial airlines between 1995 and 2000 is about 3 deaths per 10 billion passenger miles.[2]</b>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_safety

Still not patronizing or condescending, are you?

People who dismiss others' worry about safety in planes always resort to statistics, as if that would do it. These statistics are just wonderful, exhaustive, documented. As it happens, however, cv2004 isn't making a choice between driving to Italy and flying.