I'm looking for the best flight from Ottawa/Montreal/Toronto to SW Ireland on July 1st or 2nd.

Is it better to fly via London, to Kerry? What about Shannon?

Can anyone recommend a direct flight?

Probably your best bet are websites like kayak.com flying into Shannon. You'll see there if there are any direct flights and what the costs are. On kayak you can try all the different options you can think of.

Cork airport would also be a viable chice for the SW. There are a number of low-cost connections from England and Scotland.

Bob

Hi,

I flew to Dublin from Ottawa, via Toronto, last summer, but I went with Air Canada, just because I didn't want the hassle of connecting in a strange place, making my own way to Toronto, etc etc.

Air Transat runs direct Charter flights from Toronto to Shannon, Dublin and Belfast. A quick search comes up with a Toronto-Dublin flight on July 2 for $867, including taxes. Air Transat was the cheapest I found when I did my research last year as well.

Kerry's unlikely to be a good choice, since it's connected only to Stansted and Luton in the London area, which have limited transatlantic connections (though do check flyglobespan).

The only convenient routing to Cork is likely to be all-BA, since other airlines serving the British Isles from Canada are unlikely to offer baggage interlining in Britain. So you'll have to go through immigration, wait for your bags, go through Customs, check in and go through security: minimum 2 hrs.

Which seems to argue for Shannon.

For cheap flights, another option is flyglobespan.com. However, they only fly out of Hamilton once a week, and not on 7/1 or 7/2. Under C$400 each way.

I believe they fly YHM-DUB-SNN-YHM, so the outbound to Shannon will be one-stop.

Their "no frills" economy has only 30" pitch. Air Transat is also famous for its super-tight seating.