I was just looking online for a flight for somebody coming from the US, and I found that if you look during May you can get some very cheap flights on expedia.com from the 6th-20th it was $403 round trip and from the 13th-27th it was $425. The price is the same to fly to Basel also.
Not sure if it will help anyone, but if you know of ppl living close to NYC, it's a great reason to push them to come visit