Cheap flights to Florida - Direct or connecting flights?

Generally, we would always advise you to pay a little bit extra for a direct flight, but with Florida this is not so straightforward. Although there are plenty of charter flights to Orlando from a wide range of regional UK cities, many of these only operate once per week, allowing little opportunity for flexibility. Until recently, Manchester was the only city outside London to offer frequent flights to Orlando, but last summer saw Glasgow finally tapping in to this popular market, with Globespan's ambitious programme of daily flights to Orlando Sanford.

If you don't live near one of these airports, then you might still have the option of a connecting flight via another city in the USA (perhaps New York or Atlanta), or transferring through London. In our opinion, neither of these options are particularly attractive - for example traveling through Atlanta means passing through security screening just to get into the airport terminal, followed by the need to go through immigration and customs before having to re-check your bag for your onward flight.

On the other hand, flying via London will usually involve an inconvenient change of terminal. However, just as Orlando is not well established as a base for any of the major US airlines, there are also very few scheduled flights there from any other European cities as the demand for flights to Orlando is much lower on the Continent. However, there are many more opportunities for connecting flights to Miami via other European hubs. The city's strong Hispanic flavour has ensured there are plenty of flights to Miami from Madrid, whilst KLM and Air France also provide a good range of connection opportunities from many UK regional cities via Amsterdam and Paris respectively.