Hello,
I plan to go from Zurich to New York at the end of September and come back from Boston by mid October.
There are several options for the flights with all american airlines (Delta, US Airways, United, Continental...). Obviously also Swiss/Luftansa is an option. Prices are quite good anyhow so I would like to pick the company offering the best service on the flight (food, seating position, movies), even in economy.
Any advise?
Thank you
Lorenzo

go with swiss definately.. i just flew with continental/united and by far the worst transatlantic flight ive ever had

Thank you for the tip! I heard that it is possible to book the flight thtough United but the flight is operated by Swiss... In this way you save 100$. Sounds too nice to be true...
What about US Airways? I would have to change in Philadelphia but prices are good. Not sure about the service.

Do you need a visa? How are you going to pay Uncle Sam's entrance fee?

What kind of prices are you getting quoted if you don't mind my asking.

I used www.opodo.co.uk yesterday to get an idea of return flight prices to NY from Zurich for September and I was getting quotes of about 450 GBP....

I was really happy with my Continental Airlines flight direct from Zurich to Newark, New Jersey last Christmas.

But whenever I book a flight, I usually try to go with one that has the least stops in-between. I've found that, the more stops, the more chances for something to go wrong (delays, missing luggage, etc.).

I always found these sites to be quite helpful with flight quotes: www.expedia.com and www.travelocity.com.

Good luck!

Private Jet is an option also

About the Visa, it depends on the countries, when your passpoert has been issued and so on. In my case I just have to register on
https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov.
I checked prices on www.kayak.com, many options between 730 and 900 USD.

How is the entertainment ie movies on Continental?
I haven't been impressed with food on any of the longhaul carriers to the US
I am talking about cattle class, of course

pretty rubbish i found, virgin, ba and swiss much much better..

i.e you get a choice and can start the movie whenever you want etc. not on continetnal though

RE: Continental and flight entertainment - Oh, well I'll take my own media device with me then.
The price was very good and it operates a direct flight to NYC from GVA - I can live with bad food and not-so-good entertainment

If you're flexible try different dates. Sometimes the price differences can be quite astonishing. Also, if you're flexible with travelling, try different comnibations of departure airports and destination airports (on both sides of the Atlantic) as if you can deal with the time penalty, this often more than offsets the costs of local travel (or you can even see that as a positive and get to see some places you'd otherwise never visit). Often you get better deals through smaller airports.

Swiss is by far the best and they generally are the lowest or close to it. When we did our Swiss flight from Boston to Zurich we got both dinner and breakfast. Dinner was surprisingly good and included wine! We purchased our flights through a travel agencies and we able to get our airfare below published fares.

What travel agent was that?

So far I've never found a travel agent that could match the most competitive deals I could find online.

As I mentioned few messages before, I haeard that you can buy United flights but operated by Swiss saving more than 100$ compared to Swiss prices. Has anybody experienced that?

Swiss? Lowest? ha! You are right that they can be competitive, but a lot of the time they are more expensive.

I have flown all of the American carriers from Europe (and Japan) to the US. Delta's ground service specifically in Zurich is disastrous. I had no trouble with the crew in the air though--they were quite nice. But if something goes wrong on Delta, customer service (hearsay only, but I trust my many sources on this) can also be a problem. United (which is now merged with Continental) is by far the worst. They are so so so rude and the food is the worst of the three major American carriers (in economy). If you are going with an American-carrier, go with American Airlines. They are generally on time, have direct flights into JFK and Boston, and in general, are the best customer service airline. The food is relatively good, and the in-service entertainment is normal.

Only with the international carriers will you get in-seat entertainment. If this is important to you, then I too would recommend Swiss.

And as a general rule, when possible, book solely with the carrier you are taking overseas. That way, if you do run into issues with missing a flight or something, you are on the top of their list to take care of. If you go through a third-party website, the airlines are *not* required to rebook you...the website you booked with is, and this is when people run into major issues. That isn't to say that the airline won't rebook you, but in general, especially for the international portion of your flight, booking on aa.com or united.com or whatever airline you choose saves you a lot of hassle. HTH

Depending on whether you are on a US-based website or a Swiss-based website, the prices can be different. Just do your research. But it is definitely possible.

also small point to remember is that on swiss with the A330-300 aircraft the arm rests in eco can not be lifted up and put between the seat - max angle is 45 degrees

always flew united as they had economy plus , which cause of my height they would give me every time .

I never had an issue with them and flew them well over 20 times from brussels to US

Dinner and breakfast are standard on US/Europe flights, and usually wine is also standard

i'd avoid us air... philadelphia sucks and is the black hole of luggage. we used to fly american all the time, service and prices ok, food not so great. unless you fly a 777 on american - via london - the entertainment is not so great (older 767 or 757) . my sister flew united in april... had to go via dulles, which was a mess. older 767, crappy entertainment.

people seem to like swiss, i've only done short flights within europe and liked them.

my husband actually prefers british - he's quite tall and pays extra for the premium economy and doesn't mind going through london. in fact he's on his way to san francisco right now on ba.