Jim_Tardio

I'm planning a trip to Germany/Paris at Christmas time in 2007.

Are there any cities in the USA that are cheaper to fly out of...and are there any cities in Europe that are cheaper to fly in to?

In short, I'm looking for the cheapest route from the USA to Europe for the Christmas season. There are 20-30 of us meeting there from various cities scattered throughout the USA. I have several free flights available to me through Southwest airlines, so leaving from any major city is fairly easy.

Thanks for any help.

kayd

JFK often has the best fares to Europe, but I don't think Southwest flies there. After JFK, the other east coast cities are usually a bit cheaper than midwest and western cities, but a great fare could pop up anywhere. Why not begin by identifying a handful of gateway airports you can reach nonstop on Southwest, then start watching fares on all the airlines that serve those airports.

dfr4848

Jim - I don't know where your initial departure point is, but keep two things in mind. 1) SW doesn't fly into a lot of airports that are international gateways. For ex, it doesn't fly into JFK, EWR, BOS ATL, MIA, IAH, or DUL. It does fly into PHL and BWI. So with SW you may have to change airports in one of the "major cities" which can be a pain, and your options from PHL and BWI are more limited than, say, JFK or EWR. 2) kayd is right that JFK (and I would add EWR) often have the cheapest fares to Europe, but flying from some non-coast cities is often less than $100-200 more than the east coast cities, resulting in overall less time flying and certainly less hassles.

Having said that, usually fares to LHR, LGW, AMS and CDG are the lowest from the States (but not always true now with LHR and LGW due to the new taxes just imposed).

Hope this helps and good luck.

phieaglefan

It also seems the FRA has pretty signifigantly cheaper fares most days than some other European airports. What I also like about FRA is that it's fairly centrally located for hitting other spots in Europe.

ripit

The previous posters are dead on. None of the major European gateway airports (JFK, BOS, MIA, ATL) are served by Southwest. You can check if you can get any good fares out of Reagan or Dulles, which are both served by SWA.

A possible option, provided you can get cheap enough aifare to make it worth the hassle, would be to fly to LGA and take a cab to JFK. I would guess a cab would run about $50 and take 20 min to over an hour, depending on traffic on the Van Wyck. Most flights to Europe leave JFK at 6 PM or later.

If you are really cheap....er...frugal, you could take a cab to Queens Blvd @ 71st Ave. and catch the eastbount E to Jamaica and from there catch the new "AirTrain" to JFK. It would be nice if somebody used it.

From JFK, you can look at LTU for cheap fares to/from Germany. All NA flights land in Dusseldorf, which is their hub. From there you can connect throughout Germany and the rest of Europe. I am flying them this June/July. We got a R/T fare into Dusseldorf and returning from Munich via Dusseldorf for $550 all in.

kayd

(Reagan) National is not an international airport. Dulles has United and a lot of European flag carriers (Lufthansa, BA, SAS, others), but the other U.S. carriers have no significant transatlantic traffic from IAD.

Jim_Tardio

Thanks for the replies so far. It's true that Southwest doesn't fly into the major hubs, but I can arrive a day sooner via one of the smaller airports.

I live in Los Angeles. I'm keeping my eyes open for good fares directly from here, but was wondering if there is any huge difference in price from some other city in the US.

I check with LTU. Thanks again.

rkkwan

London used to have the lowest fares, because of competition. But with the recent increase in taxes, Dublin has become an alternative. Aer Lingus and Ryanair provides relatively low cost fares to many cities in Europe.

And you don't need to do those 5-hour LHR/LGW - STN/LTN transfer.

Jim_Tardio

Thanks...yes, Dublin is considerably cheaper. That may be what I was looking for.