My wife and I will be spending 10 days in Tuscany at the end of May prior to attending a conference in Lucerne. We need to fly from either Florence or Venice to Zurich, however the prices for a one-way flight we've seen on line are around $500 each! We don't want to spend 8 hours on the train and driving seems prohibitive in both time and cost. Surely there is a less expensive flight to cover this short 200 mile distance. We could fly from Milan, Pisa, or anywhere in Northern Italy. Help anyone?

If you can fly from anywhere in Northern Italy, why not take the train from Lugano---it's only 3 hours to Zürich. There are also trains from this area that stop in Luzern.

Have you look at Helvetic? They have flights from Pisa to Zurich for the ridiculous price of like US$14. Go to http://www.helvetic.com/en/Default.aspx. But note the caveat below on Pisa airport. If you have to fly out of Pisa that is about a 2 hour train ride, adding quite a bit to the travel time. Also note that Florence's airport is supposed to be closed or closing for a few months so it may not be possible to fly out of Florence, you may have to go via Pisa. If you can go out of Venice instead that might be better.

Also look at round trip tickets on Alitalia and Swiss, they are often cheaper than one way. Just buy the round trip and don't use the return.

The distance Florence-Zurich is 360 miles; Venice-Zurich 330 miles.
Train from Flornec to Pisa takes one hour; a bit further to the airport.

Having done the train journey myself, it takes about 90 minutes, so door to door you are looking at about 2 hours. If you are lucky and can get a train that requires no changes, you can do this trip in about an hour (so door to door you are talking about 1.5 hours), those trains don't run as often, so you end up mostly having to change in Pisa. You can also take a taxi in about an hour, but that will cost like US$150.

That is why Florence airport is better, but may be closed now.

At present, they are offering Florence to Zurich specials on the cis-Alpino train for Euro 39. Takes about 6 hours with spectacular views after Milan. If you're particularly susceptible to travel sickness, take an ordinary train, not the cis-alpino - it sways.