A Sicilian Odyssey 2025 Flights to Sicily
We are thinking about booking A Sicilian Odyssey for one of the 2025 tours that are being offered. It looks like these have just opened up.
The airport into and out of Sicily is Catania Fontanarossa Airport (CTA). In looking at various airline websites and Google Flights it appears that it may be a nightmare journey to get there. (2+ stops, long journey times etc.) We fly out of Seattle.
My question to anyone who has been on this trip…How were the flights getting to Sicily? Would we have to expect a long and arduous journey?
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Depends on what you thing is long and arduous. On Google Flights for some random dates this September I found the following:
Thanks Smiling Sam. Can you act as our Travel Agent?
When I did a dummy booking on the Delta site it didn’t give me anything. The flights when we would be going aren’t even available yet.
We stayed in Rome 2 nights before heading to Sicily. A nice way to break up the flights and I love Rome. This is a wonderful tour, one of our favourites.
I would not rely on a transfer time of 1 hr and 35 min at CDG ever! And I would be nervous about 1 hr and 25 minutes at AMS.
We were thinking that staying in Rome or some other European city with cirect flights to Catania for a couple of days might be an option.
Both my wife and I get very nervous with less than a 2 hour connection in any European city.
JohnS - I agree about the connection times, but I was trying to address your concern about ‘long’. More layover, ‘longer’ the total travel time.
When looking up flights I’m amazed that options always pop up, especially if transferring through Phoenix or Dallas, that have 40 minute connection times. Numerous times I’ve had to call an airline when they attempt to change your flight and give you a one of those 40 minute connections.
Crazy ‘long and arduous’ journey’s are much more common living in a minor hub like Tucson vs a major hub like Atlanta, Seattle, LA, etc. We oftentimes make a pre and post tour stop in Seattle to visit family in order to get better flight options to/from the tour itself. We will be doing that for our upcoming Singapore/Bali tour.
Hi JohnS, I don't know if by now you've managed to find something, but we just completed recently the Sicily tour and from LAX also had very few options. Like everyone else, we found some ridiculous connection times. Last year we initiated this trip and had to return early, and at that time KLM was flying to Catania which we really liked, but they don't seem to go there anymore. We ended up on Lufthansa. I usually try searching different days to see if I can get a better connection, or as above consider an extension in another city which has better connections to my destination. There was a couple in our Sicily group from Northern California that used Turkish Air, and their connection was Istanbul! They said it was very good, cheaper than other options, and also they said that the airline included a 2 night stay each way in Istanbul. I have not checked to see if the airline still offers this. Good luck and I am curious as to what you come up with. (Since I would love to return to Sicily!)
edit for postscript: I have a friend who often books different carriers for outbound and inbound and says it is not always more expensive to do this. I did this for Australia/NZ but have not had luck with Europe yet.
Hi yes it was hard to get there We came from Athens. We stayed in Naples for two nights to check it out and get there. We also stayed in Catania one hight as our flight the next day was early. That was fine to do.. trip was amazing though!!
We have flights home from Catania to Rome on ITA air and then Rome to Atlanta on Delta. We have a 3 hour layover. Should I worry about making my connection? Has anyone done anything similar? I am already stressing.
Hi Sharon, the Italians grumble about ITA (new iteration of Alitalia) but the few people we've met on Tauck tours who have used it seem satisfied. Recently a friend flew ITA and was happy with it. I hope you have done the research on where the terminals are in Rome, and how long it will take you to collect your bags and get to the next terminal, and go through security again. Personally I would not have chosen this itinerary because I am not a risk-taker. But Catania is a struggle, so I do understand the dilemma. If you don't get a response from anyone who has done it on this forum you could try posting on Tripadvisor Rome forum.
We haven't done this trip, but ITA is a codeshare and Skyteam Alliance partner with Delta which makes ticketing, flight side transfer, and checking bags through to your final destination much easier. I would think 3 hrs. is more than enough.
Thanks AlanS. This would make sense if the two legs were booked on the same ticket. I got the impression they were somehow separate tickets. Apologies! Perhaps Sharon can clarify.
Thanks for your suggestions. Yes I have 2 different tickets. I did ask my TA to get me on an earlier flight from Catania. I now have 4 hours in Rome. I couldn’t change the Delta flights without paying a lot more. I hope this works out 🤪
Did this trip 2023. No, it is not easy to get to Catania. Just the way it is. Be sure your boarding passes, etc. show ITA and not ATA. Ours showed ATA when we got to Rome they could not find the resvs when we tried to make connections. Eventually, they did but luckily we had a 4 hour lay-over. Tauck made the airline resvs. Not blaming Tauck but u must do your 'due diligence'.
Delta now has a direct flight from JFK to Catania. We will be leaving from Kansas City. We have already booked the flight into Catania for June 2025. We are so glad this opened up as we were dreading having to land in Rome, etc and get another flight after traveling all day and night.
Thanks CathieOK for your info about Delta flights from JFK. Unfortunately we can’t change our tickets now so I hope we will make our connections ok. We are going on the tour in May and are really looking forward to it.