grandmere

Does anyone know of an airline that provides inexpensive service between these two cities? Frankfurt is the only place we can fly non-stop to from Pgh. these days, (USAirways) and therefore, it is the least expensive place to go. For example, it's $300 less than flying to Paris, Mar.,2004.
Thank you!

Cicerone

I live in Switzerland. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of low cost airlines which fly into Swizterland. You might try Ryanair or Jetair, but I don't think either go to Geneva.

You can take the train from Frankfurt to Geneva in 6 hours (fastest express train) and it should cost at least half of what the airfare would be. You can get the train right at the airport, most trains have one transfer in Basel, some have one additional change. It would be a pretty ride. Take a look at the Swiss Federal Railways site as swiss.ch. (When choosing a deprture station on the site, you want to depart from Frankfurt Flughafen; enter Frankfurt and it will give you a list of several Frankfurt departure stations, including Flughafen, which means airport.)

Swiss In'l Air sometimes may have special offers, try their website at swiss.com

Andre

grandmere,

I beg to differ with Cicerone - Geneva actually has excellent low-fare service mainly by EasyJet (Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Paris etc.), but also other carriers. On the other hand, Frankfurt is Lufthansa's fortress hub and has no low fare service that I know of. Ryanair and a few other fly from "Frankfurt" Hahn, but that's out in the middle of nowhere and there's no service to Geneva.

AFAIK, the only airline to fly the FRA-GVA route is Lufthansa (Swissair gave it up a long time ago and Swiss never flew it) - you might be lucky and get a decent fare if you book a round trip far ahead of time...

But to be honest, if you're going to be changing planes anyway, why do you have to fly transatlantic nonstop from Pittsburgh? You have lots of options on CO, AA and Swiss involving a single plane change in the US instead of in Europe and I'm almost certain that would be cheaper and more convenient than connecting in Frankfurt on 2 separate tickets.

Also, isn't USAirways in the process of joining Star Alliance? If so, I imagine they'll be codesharing with Lufthansa on the Pittsburgh-FRA route, so you could most probably book a Pittsburgh-GVA ticket via Frankfurt through Lufthansa at a competitive price (perhaps USAirways will offer the same ticket with their flight numbers as well). Not sure this is possible yet though.

Hope this helps,
Andre

Andre

BTW, another option if you want to fly USAirways transatlantic from PIT is to take them to London Gatwick (LGW), then take EasyJet to GVA. However, I don't think this will be much cheaper than the options I mentioned above and will entail a long layover as well as bagage claim and a tedious check in procedure at Gatwick.

Hope this helps,
Andre

grandmere

Thank you, Cicerone and Andre. Andre, you made some points that I was thinking about, also, and does raise the question as to why I feel I need to use USAirways. I like to get to Europe w/o having to change planes; figure it's always easier to make a change there, and that's not necessarily true.

Actually, I should say that what I am trying to do is to get from Pgh. to Annecy the least expensively and with the least wear and tear on us! And this is a multigenerational family trip that may never even take place (I've been having bad luck lately with these planned family trips--weddings, babies, 9/11, accidents, etc., take precedence, of course!)--husband and I, our daughter, her husband, and their toddler who would be 16 mos at time, our son and his fiancee. PIT-PHL-CDG, an overnight in Paris, then TGV to Annecy is probably the best we can do.

Have some USAirways ff to use, but not enough for all. And you're right: USAir is supposed to join Star Alliance which *may* make PIT-FRA-GVA (and still not in Annecy!) less expensive; right now it's prohibitive, money-wise.

Lots to think about, and I appreciate your input!

Andre

grandmere,

You're most welcome! If you're renting a car in Annecy (which is very useful to explore the area), I would strongly recommend flying into Geneva and not Paris, as this saves you a long drive or TGV ride.

I see now that the PIT-LGW flight isn't scheduled in March, so that's why you didn't consider that option.

If I were booking today, I would definitely fly CO through Newark: they have decent schedules and their web site turned up a fare of $424 for some random dates in March. Unfortunately, AA/Swiss isn't an option as AA doesn't seem to fly PIT-JFK.

Obviously, if you want to burn miles, you might be willing to settle for a more circuitous itinerary. Still, I would compare the total cost of both options.

Hope this helps,
Andre

grandmere

Thanks again, Andre. The CO fares are good for the dates I need for my Sp. Break at the univ. where I work! If I could get the family to commit, I'd book immediately; we'll see what happens.

Andre

You're most welcome!

A final tip: if you fly into GVA, do price a car rental on the FRENCH side of the airport as well - the terminal straddles the swiss-french border and rates are generally cheaper in France. The location is generally listed as Geneva, FRANCE in the rental car reservation systems.

Hope this helps,
Andre

grandmere

Glad you brought this up; I was thinking I had read something somewhere about this, but my recollection was very vague!

Andre

Talk of the devil! Check out this press release:

http://konzern.lufthansa.com/en/html...20%20%20%20%20

Looks like you might be able to earn/burn your USAirways miles after all!

Hope this helps,
Andre

grandmere

Good news,and I thank you, but evidently the website has not been "notified"! I put in my March dates, and the fare came back for over $5000 per person!

Eventually, I'm sure, the technology wil catch up, and the fare should be competitive; right now, though, the CO $426 is lookin' good!

Andre

grandmere,

I plugged dates into the Lufthansa site and the codeshare flights were already loaded... but the fare still came to $876, so CO seems like a much better buy. Perhaps you're willing to split up, with the people travelling on free tickets taking LH and the others flying CO.

Anyway, perhaps USAirways will have better fares on those flights than LH when they load them... isn't this fun?

Andre

Andre

Grandmere,

Here's the link to the press release on the USAirways site:

http://www.usairways.com/about/press/nw_03_1020.htm

It appears that at this point at least USAirways will NOT be codesharing on the FRA to GVA segment, so your only 2 options are indeed LH and CO.

Hope this helps,
Andre