Airfares to Italy from North America

How to find the cheapest plane tickets every time to fly to Italy from the U.S.

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 There are two ways to fly from the U.S. to Italy:

  1. Using a legacy carrier—any major U.S. airline, Italy's Alitalia (or one of its codeshare partners), or a major European airline like British Airways, Air France, or Lufthansa, or...
  2. Using the low-cost carrier Eurofly—If you're lucky enough to live near New York City.

Since Eurofly is (a) news to most people and (b) usually preferable (if you can swing it), let's start with Eurofly, then go on to a quick overview of legacy carriers, and finally round up the ultimate tips for finding the cheapest airfare every time.

Fly Eurofly to Italy and save

Reid's shortcut to the best fares
All of the airfare hunting techniques mentioned on this site have merit, but, honestly, if I had to narrow it down to three crucial places to check, they would be:

1) The low-cost carrier Eurofly
2) The aggregator KayakPartner
3) The consolidator AutoEurope

Nine times out of ten, I end up booking my plane tickets to Italy through one of those methods.Simply put, the Eurofly (www.euroflyusa.com)—now part of Italy's Meridiana network—is a low-cost carrier flying from the U.S. to Italy that:

(a) Is almost always cheaper than Alitalia and the other major airlines (a recent price comparions for the cheapest available New York-Rome flights: $550 on Eurofly versus $881 on Continental), and
(b) Flies direct to Naples and Palermo, with seasonal service to Rome, Bologna, Milan and other airports. (To put that in perspective, Alitalia and its partners fly direct only to Rome and Milan).

Eurofly flies brand-new Airbuses, with individual seatback screens, and the seats, leg room, and food are no better or worse than on any other airline.

The drawbacks: euroflyEurofly only offers flights a few times a week (Alitalia and other major airlines fly daily to Italy), and only from New York's JFK. (Live outside the NYC area? Look into the Big Apple Switcheroo for flying indepedently into JFK then switching to Eurofly.)

» Here's much more in Eurofly and how it works. Full story

The legacy carriers—Alitalia and other major airlines

This is the old-fashioned and still standard way to fly to Europe: on some major airline you've already heard of. Most major U.S. airlines offer flights to Italy—direct from the East Coast and otehr major cities; if not, at least connecting through New York.

Then, of course, there is Alitalia (www.alitalia.com), Italy's national airline. Alitalia is no better or worse than any other major airline out there, and, as you'd expect, tends to have the largest number of direct flight from the U.S. to Italy:

Alitalia also codeshares with Continental (if you book an Alitalia flight that leaves out of Newark rather than New York's JFK airport, you'll almost certainly be aboard a Continental jet), is now a strategic partner with KLM/Air France, and is a member of the Skyteam alliance (www.skyteam.com), which includes Delta.

All of which means you can probably book a ticket on any of those carriers (and accrue your frequent flier miles) and still fly Altialia to Italy.

You can also often fly to Italy on a major European airline, usually connecting through a hub in their home country (say, London on British Airways, Paris on Air France, or Frankfurt on Lufthansa). Why bother? Sometimes a European carrier will be having a systemwide sale that drops its prices lower than even U.S. ones. It aways pays to check—but don't do all that legwork yourself let an airfare aggregator do the checking for you.

One of the major benefits to using a major airline is that you can often arrange to fly "open jaws"—into, say, Milan and back home from Rome—which will save you at least several hours of backtracking and probably a day's-worth of vacation.

» Here's more esoterica on the pros, cons, and details of flying a major airline to Italy. Full story

Tips for finding the cheapest airfare every time

Reid's shortcut to the best fares
All of the airfare hunting techniques mentioned on this site have merit, but, honestly, if I had to narrow it down to three crucial places to check, they would be:

1) The low-cost carrier Eurofly
2) The aggregator KayakPartner
3) The consolidator AutoEurope

Nine times out of ten, I end up booking my plane tickets to Italy through one of those methods. I go into much more detail on all of these methods on the "Saving money on airfare to Italy" page, but in brief:

» Here's much more on all these tips on how to find the cheapest airfare to Italy every single time. Full story

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This material was last updated August 2009. All information was accurate at the time.

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