San Francisco to Rome what is the best layover?
 

Seems flight times are all pretty similar my options for the layover are JFK, Amsterdam, or Paris. For anyone that has traveled through these spots which would you choose? The layover times are mostly the same about 1 1/2 hours. Thanks

Where will you start from?

Sorry, I missed it. I'd go for as close to 2 equal length flights as possible, which I suspect would be JFK. Unless you want to sleep, in which case either of the others would be better. I'm not fond of CDG so would pick Amsterdam in that case.

I should say heathrow as well. I have flown through there before my question with it is if I fly british air can I make a 55 min lay over? I remember major delays changing gates from London my last trip 3 years ago and all flights were british air. We had to reline up and go through screening again. I am just worried because 55 min seems not long enough??

Minimum legal connection time at Heathrow for a BA-to-BA connection is 1:30. No way that 55 min is enough. BA will not sell you an itinerary with that connection time (though their IT systems are sufficiently awful that they can change their flight schedules and leave you with a bad cnx time).

I would choose Amsterdam, all things being equal.
If you select Amsterdam or Paris at least you are in Europe if there is a flight delay. There would be more available alternative flights to get you on to Rome.

I'd pick Amsterdam over Rome because there would be (I think) less chance of a controller strike.

That's not a long layover wherever you select. Hopefully, your trip is all on a single ticket in case of delays.

You have to go through immigration and security at AMS or CDG. JFK is just walking over to gate if say you're flying DL.

As an SFO flyer, I'd pick AMS and avoid delays of JFK. Flying out of SFO direct to Europe typically has a more convenient departure time (not crack of dawn to fly to east coast) and if you mis-connect, there may be more options to get you to your destination. Also, less likely to be fog later in the day (depending upon time of year).

I'd say BA via LHR as second choice, but it looks like the connection was too close. Personally don't like CDG to transfer. Also avoid EWR at all costs. I've even done UA (or BA) to LHR on their later flight, overnight at cheap airport hotel and fly to Italy in the morning on a separate ticket. Ready to hit the ground running that way on arrival and no risk of missed connection.

Zurich with Swiss.

While many one-stop flights with reasonable connections have similar overall flight time, one should also think about departure/arrival times. This is particularly important from the West Coast.

For example, you can leave SFO as late as 9:15p on Air France or even 9:25p on Virgin Atlantic and still arrive FCO next day (at around 9pm). This is useful for those who want whole day of work in Bay Area and then head to airport for Europe.

On the other hand, if you want to arrive FCO as early as possible, Alitalia arrives FCO from Chicago at 7:20a, while American arrives at 7:35a from JFK and UA arrives at 7:45a and 8:10a from Chicago and Washington Dulles, respectively, followed by other North American connections.

Earliest you can arrive FCO via a reasonable European connection is after 1pm, from FRA, AMS, etc. That is almost 6 hours after the earliest N. American connection.

How about Delta to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Rome?

I would pick Amsterdam (it's an easy, uber organized airport). Plus I like to get the longest leg of the flight out of the way first.

Thanks for all the info!

You can also do SFO to JFK and then JFK to FCO on Delta.