Best way to fly Chicago to Athens?
 

We are planning a trip to Athens and the Greek Islands for next September 2009. Having trouble finding a reasonable route from Chicago to Athens. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Many of the carriers have eliminated some of their direct routes as fuel cost have risen. It appears that currently form Chicago, you could one of two things. It looks like US Air and Delta have a non-stop that goes from the US to Athens. US out of Philadelphia and Delta out of JFK. Or you could get a foreign carrier direct to another European gateway from Chicago and then fly from there to Athens. The advantage of making your connection in the US is a generally earlier arrival time at your final overseas destination and no connection after a long flight.

the landscape will probably change again several times before you go.

Can you get a cheap flight to Newark? Continental offers non-stop flights from Newark to Athens.

Both great ideas! Thank you so much for your help.

If you fly Continental out of Newark, give yourself plenty of layover time for your connection.
We did this in April and had allowed ourselves a layover of over 3 hours but the flight leaving Neward was sooooooo delayed we almost missed our connecting flight to Athens. We were the last ones on the plane!

Bettina,

I was talking about the non-stop on Continental- Newark to Athens. So I'm confused. Did you fly Continental to London and then connect onward to Athens?

Delta also flies nonstop from Atlanta to Athens (in addition to JFK).

go to www.itasoftware.com

input the start and destination points

any and all nonstops will show up

I flew Providence to Newark and then to Athens
My flight leaving Prov was so late we almost missed our connection in Newark even though I though I had given ourselves a long enough connecting time (over 3 hours)

Thank you all for your input. Most helpful. We are currently checking out all the possibilities.