Direct flights from Birmingham to Zürich
The only airline which offers direct flights to Zürich from Birmingham is Swiss.
Even though Swiss often offer some excellent value connecting flights from Birmingham to destinations in the USA or Asia, our experience has shown that they via rarely offer cheap flights to Zurich from Brum. This is not surprising considering that most passengers travelling on Birmingham to Zürich flights are business passengers who are not anything like as price sensitive as leisure passengers. As our price comparison below shows, it is often notably cheaper to take a connecting flight to Zürich, although this is obviously nowhere near as convenient.
Connecting flights to Zürich from Birmingham
The main options for flight connections to Zürich are all with KLM/Air France via Amsterdam/Paris Charles de Gaulle or with Lufthansa via Frankfurt International, Düsseldorf or Munich. Because of the tie-ups between these airlines, you may well find yourself ending up flying outbound via Amsterdam and returning via Paris (or vice versa of course), or outbound via Frankfurt and back on a direct flight with Swiss, who are a subsidiary of the German airline Lufthansa.
Flights from Birmingham to Zürich – February 2009 price comparison
We searched online travel agent expedia.co.uk for flights to Zürich from Birmingham departing on April 16 and returning one week later. All prices are per person for economy seats and include all taxes and charges.
We also looked at flights from Birmingham to Geneva, but both Easyjet and BmiBaby only operate this route on during the ski season. We also checked Expedia.co.uk for flights to Basel from Birmingham, and bizarrely we found a flight for £165 via Zurich! This shows the farce of what happens when airlines feel they can charge more for a direct flight than they can for a connection. On the same basis, flights from Birmingham to Geneva are even cheaper still -- £150 with Swiss/Lufthansa via Zürich (outbound) and Düsseldorf (return) respectively.
We also had a look at Easyjet's cheap flights to Geneva from East Midlands. For a trip departing one day earlier on April 15, it was possible to get return flights to Geneva for just £39. Whether this is any good or not really depends on the kind of trip you're making -- time conscious business travellers will just want to get straight there and back, whereas the leisure passenger has a lot more flexibility. We would also argue that if you have to travel by land between different airports, it is much nicer to do this in Switzerland than it is at home -- just compare sitting back and relaxing your seat on the ICN as it whisks you around Lake Geneva with having to drive down the motorway. However, this seemingly tempting Easyjet fare is not so enticing when you consider that a return rail fare between Geneva airport and Zurich costs around £100 (or £50 with a half price ticket).
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