flights to Basel
 

We will be cruising on Uniworld's Rhine and Moselle cruise in May 2016, which begins in Basel and ends in Amsterdam. We live in California and need to fly to Basel where our cruise departs. In checking possible flights on Kayak I am discovering an issue with luggage allowance on flights from within Europe to Basel. At least 2 carriers, KLM and Lufthanza, use regional jets, typicly with 70 or so seats. Will this effect the amount of luggage we will permitted to take? There are 6 of us traveling, and each will have a 24 inch bag to be checked.

I would love to hear from someone who had had experience with this issue.
Many thanks

No telling what you "discovered," but there are no luggage restrictions on KLM or Lufthansa's flights to Basel. Assuming that you connect on a flight from the States, The luggage allowance on the flight to Basel will be the same as the luggage allowance for the Trans-Atlantic flight.

(Note that if you buy a ticket to Basel on SWISS, the "flight" from Zurich to Basel may actually be a train ride.)

We went on that same cruise and we flew KLM from Basel to Amsterdam on our return and had no problems with a luggage allowance.

Thanks for the quick responses

Most of my West Coast colleagues who need to fly into Basel go the KLM route to Amsterdam then to Basel. Occasionally, they don't make their connections in Amsterdam due to delays on take-off from the West Coast.

The other option they sometimes go with is a direct flight from San Francisco to Zurich, then catching the train to Basel (or the company shuttle).

Note: these are biz class trips. My colleagues tell me the Swiss direct flight to Zurich biz class product is better than the KLM Amsterdam/Basel combo. I've taken Swiss biz class from Zurich to Newark (and back) and found it good; haven't done KLM in business class.

If you can get Swiss non-stop from LAX or SFO to ZRH, that's the easier and faster route as there's an hourly train that goes direct from ZRH airport to Basel SBB. No need to get off or switch train, and it takes 80 minutes. [And more frequent if you are willing to switch trains at Zurich HBf.] Better than having to go through immigration at AMS and worry about connection.

rkkwan, as of mid-December, the direct train from ZRH to Basel will take about 90 minutes (9 minutes added to current travel time) and will stop in Zurich HBf.