Best airline
 

What is the best airline to fly to Italy? best comfort? but isn't crazy expensive!?

The airlines all charge approximately the same amount - unless you find some wonderful sale. Steerage is awful in all of them. IMHO comfort requires at least business class - and that will not be cheap. Look at kayak.com to see the options from your city at your dates.

(And without knowing where you are coming from - how do we have a clue what airlines are available to you.)

Fly to Italy from where? The best for me would be the one offering the best schedule (nonstop or fewest stops) from my home airport to Italy. In my experience, the comfort of coach class on one airline is much like coach class on another. If you are planning to travel at peak times, then all airlines will have high prices. Traveling offseason or midweek can often lower your airfare dramatically. A good website to compare different airlines is kayak.com.

Typing at the same time, nytraveler and I offer basically the same advice.

Delta is the only airline that offers direct flights from my home city to Europe (to Amsterdam), so naturally they are the "best" airline - for ME. In the US, I fly Southwest, but of course they don't fly to Europe.

I think depending on where you live, one airline may wind up providing the best connections than the others. I now try to avoid any US layovers when flying to/from Europe if I can, even if I have to pay a little more. If I HAVE to layover somewhere, I always look at contingency plans: what if I miss my connection? Does that airline offer a later flight to my destination city? If not, then there's a chance I would be a day late getting to my destination, and that could ruin a vacation if this is the flight to begin my vacation. This is another case where one airline may be better for me than another: if I'm headed to say London and one airline has multiple flights a day to London from my connecting city and another doesn't, I'll lean toward the one with multiple flights, to give me more options in case of a delay.

In general it is best to have a direct flight from your home city to your European destination.

Second best is a connection in Europe (Atlanta to Amterdam to Rome) rather than a connection in the US (Atlanta to New York to Rome) because your rights as a passenger in case of delays or cancellations are generally much greater in Europe.

The one you are willing to pay for First Class and even THEN no real guarantees.

I will be flying out of seattle

They all suck, it's just a matter of degree.

Go to seatguru.com to see the degree variations.

Just a word of caution regarding kayak. More than once, I have been looking at flight options, only to discover that going to the airline site directly got me a substantially better price than was being shown on any of the consolidator's sites (no idea why). Of course, in Kayak's case, you would have to go to another site to book the ticket anyway.

Kayak is good for getting a feel for your options though.

I also consider what aircraft the airline might be flying and what seating configurations are available. Sounds like a lot of trouble I know, but sitting in economy all the way from the US to Europe requires that I avoid certain things, like middle row seats 4 across.

Consider which airlines have an economy "comfort" or "plus" section if you can't afford business class.

Talk to people in your home city and ask about their flights to Europe. What airline do they prefer?

Pick a destination then try the airlines forum here, or join Flyertalk.com (not that I think they are really nice to newbies, but other people seem to like it) and ask specifically about Seattle to Rome, or Paris, or where ever you want to go.

tuscanlifeedit: This is a really old thread (it was topped by a spammer)