In July, we're hoping to fly to from San Francisco to London, take trains through France/Switzerland and then fly out of Zurich back to SFO. Swiss Airlines is opening their Zurich/SFO service in June. These flights don't seem to show-up on the Kayak/Expedia-type websites, only on the Swiss Air site, so the options offered are very limited.

Is the open jaw approach going to be impractical? Do we need to fly back to London from Switzerland?

Can we take a non-stop flight to London on a Swiss Air partner airline l(Continental or US Air) then take Swiss Airlines home from Zurich?

Thanks for your help!
E's Husband

The open jaw is certainly a possibility, but you may have to phone SWISS for clarification and to compare prices.

The SWISS site should offer you a flight from SFO to LHR via Zurich. Using the least expensive fares, SWISS would also allow you to use Lufthansa flights to go from SFO to LHR, changing planes in Frankfurt, then returning to SFO from Zurich on the SWISS non-stop.

SWISS and Lufthansa are owned by the same group (Lufthansa), so it's generally easy to use either airline in the same itinerary. However, it's usually more difficult (that is, expensive) to use most other Star Alliance partners, so it might cost a lot to take the United non-stop from SFO to LHR. If I were you, I'd give SWISS a call.

<b>A note about the name of this airline</b>

There are 2 correct names for this airline: <b>Swiss International Air Lines</b> (with init caps), or the abbreviation <b>SWISS</b> (all caps). There is no such thing as Swissair, or Swiss air, or anything similar. The airline called Swissair went out of business several years ago after a series of management and financial disasters -- primarily when they purchased the now-also-defunct Belgian airline, SABENA. When Swissair failed, a much smaller Swiss airline, Crossair, took over Swissair's assets, including most of the aircraft and many of the personnel. That's why SWISS's flights have the LX designation (from Crossair) and not the SR designation of the old Swissair.

Anyway, the proper way to refer to the airline is either SWISS or Swiss International, but Swiss is certainly acceptable. However, it's pretty much a lost cause to expect most people to sort this all out, so only the most stuffy pedants (such as this typist) are likely to kvetch about any other name that you use for the airline.

I'm seeing LX38 ZRH to SFO on Kayak for July.

You might also check Lufthansa. SWISS is a Lufthansa company.

The only non-stop SFO-LHR flights are operated by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and United. USAirways may codeshare on the UA flight, while Continental codeshares on the VS and UA flights.

My thought was that eeyann could fly SFO to London via a Lufthansa hub, then ZRH - SFO non-stop on the way back, making a Lufthansa/Swiss flight in both directions.

RK raises a good point. Since UAL is a Star alliance, as are SWISS and LH, you may be able to book this all on one of the Star alliance partners, i.e. UAL, LH, or even SWISS website. Worth a try. Non-stop for both legs.

Thanks for the great information. I realize now that my return date (a Tuesday) is the one day that Swiss International doesn't fly to SFO. When I changed the return date the Swiss/SFO flight appeared on Kayak in combination with UA and Continental non-stop flights to London. It's expensive ($1,640 round trip), but the travel time is shorter and I love the open-jaws approach.

Thanks rizzuto for the information on Swiss International! Thanks everyone for you excellent advice!

E's husband