Inter-Europe flights
 

Hello,

I am looking for suggestions around inter-europe flghts for the followng trips:

- London-Paris
- Paris-Munich
- Frankfurt-Munich

I checked ryanair but it seems to serve smaller airports that are far out of cities. I would prefer the main airports.

Thanks for your help.

London to Paris take the Eurostar train www.eurostar.com and book 4 months in advance for the best prices. Its just over two hours and city centre to city centre (we are going to Paris tonight on the eurostar YAY).

Cant help with the others, but have you checked Air France and the German carrier? Sometimes I find the national carriers are just as cheap once you've added all the additional charges, and they go into the main airports.

Your best bet is to go to something like Kayak.com and see what comes up. Specific to the routes you mention...

- London-Paris: I'd take the train. It will be (much) faster, city center to city center. Otherwise, Easyjet flies from London-Luton to CDG. BA and Air France both fly from Heathrow to CDG and Orly. Air France also flies to Orly from London City, which would be the most convenient flight option. BA tends to offer competitive one-way fares, but Air France tends to be pricey for one-ways.

Paris-Munich: At over 6 hours by train, I'd fly this one. Air France and Lufthansa are the only non-stop options I know of. I find Lufthansa to be more competitive for one-way fares.

Frankfurt-Munich: At under 4 hours by train, I could go either way. Lufthansa looks to have a monopoly on this route.

I would take the train on all of those routes and relax.

If you can't find a cheap one-way for Paris-Munich with Lufthansa, try an open-jaw PAR-MUC / MUC-FRA.
While flying is not really faster than the train from Munich to Frankfurt, the two flights together can be cheaper than just PAR-MUC.

This site is not complete, but does give a good start in finding cheap flights: http://www.flylc.com/directall-en.asp

The most complete flight sight is IMO www.skyscanner.net

Dukey1,

I tested skyscanner for May 10 flights Paris to Rome and it told me that no flights were available. I then when to flylc for the same date, and Vueling had three flights available on that day. Clearly it pays to check the various web sites.

Anyway, if you consider being at an airport 2 hours early for a European flight, the security hassles, having to wait for your luggage which may or may not be on board -- in any case, usually an hour to get away from the airport; add to that the travel time to/from both airports and even a six hour train trip looks appealing. No security hassles and transportation from city center to city center -- plus scenery out of the window and the possiblity of walking around or going to the bar car as much as you want.

And if you find cheaper air fares than the rail fares, please do not forget to add in the transportation charges to get to and from the airports.

And of course, I did not even count the actual flying or runway taxiing time when speaking of flight times!

Skyscanner's results favour discount carriers. It does have results from some national and major carriers but it is by no means "complete".

Sorry, I didnt provide the whole information. I was going to fly into London from US, though my destination was Paris, so was looking for a connecting flight from London to Paris. On way back, I was going to fly out of Frankfurt though I would have been Munich. So I wanted to fly to Munich to Frankfurt to catch my US flight. Therefore, train wouldnt have worked for me.

Luckily, now I am flying into Paris from US and flying out of Munich for US so that problem is solved.

However, I still need to travel from Paris to Munich. I can either take train or plane. However, I thought train journey from Paris to Munich was 9 hours or so.

By the way, how long is the train journey from Munich to Zurich?

You can check train schedules at www.bahn.de.

there are plenty of TVG from Paris to Munich in 6 hours. You can do Munich to Zurich in 4 hours.

Go to bahn.de for schedules for all of europe (but prices only for Germany).

For Paris to Munich, you will want to purchase tickets on one of the French sites:

www.voyages-sncf.com (in French only)
www.tgv-europe.com

Tickets go on sale 90 days before any given departure date. The earlier you purchase, the cheaper the tickets. Currently, PREMs are available for as little as 39€ for the 6+ hour trip. PREMs may be printed at home on your personal computer or picked up at any station in Paris.

So if we take TGV, we will leave Paris for Munich and return to Paris from Zurich. Which train stations in Paris serve TGV trains to Munich and from Zurich? Looks like there are a few large train stations in Paris. However, I am not sure if we should be taking two rather long train rides (with kids) within the few days we have. So perhaps we should be flying in and out of paris instead? I checked the prices of train tickets at TGV website and the total cost of roundtrip is about the same as airfares.

By the way, we will surely be traveling from Munich to Zurich in train.

Not sure what you mean by "flying in and out of Paris instead".
You still plan to see Paris, Zurich, and Munich, correct?

If so and if you want to spend as little time traveling as possible you should
- fly into Paris
- take direct TGV Paris (Paris Est, by the way)- Zurich (4.5hrs)
- direct train Zurich-Munich (4hrs)
- fly out of Munich
(or in opposite direction)

Actually, if you worry about travel stress, I'd find it easier for you to start in Munich and end in Paris. Munich is much much smaller than Paris, with a compact old town with lots of pedestrian zones.