Flights to Sicily

Flying to Sicily by plane is a genuinely convenient option, as it minimises travel time whilst offering spectacular views during your descent. The island’s main airports are Palermo and Catania, whilst the secondary hubs of Trapani and Comiso handle significantly fewer passengers and are used primarily by budget airlines.

The geographic distribution of Sicily’s airports is well balanced: Catania airport sits on the eastern coast, Comiso to the south, and Palermo and Trapani to the west. This means that flying also makes it convenient to tour Sicily by arriving in one area and departing from another. Once you’ve arrived, you can hire a car or take advantage of local public transport, particularly the comfortable and frequent intercity buses.

Why fly to Sicily

The main advantage of flying compared to other forms of transport is clear: regardless of which Italian airport you’re departing from, the actual flight duration never exceeds an hour and a half. Combined with the high frequency and availability of flights, this means you can make the most of even your first and last days of holiday, perhaps choosing a morning arrival flight to Sicily and an evening return flight.

By contrast, driving your own car can make the journey extremely lengthy, depending of course on where you’re starting from, but considering you first need to reach Reggio Calabria and then cross the Strait of Messina by ferry, you could easily lose two days to travel.

Even opting for one of the ferries departing from mainland Italy isn’t the most relaxing journey: it takes over 12 hours from Civitavecchia to Palermo, and slightly less from Naples.

Direct flights to Sicily from the rest of Italy

Below are the airlines and direct connections to the main Sicilian airports from other Italian airports.

Flights to Palermo

The direct flights to Palermo are carried out by the airlines Air France, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, Jet2, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Norwegian Air Sweden AOC, Ryanair, SWISS, Scandinavian Airlines, Transavia France, Vueling Airlines, Wizz Air Malta, EasyJet and Transavia from the airports of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Birmingham, Bristol, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Duesseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Manchester, Marsiglia, Munich, Newcastle, Nizza, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna and Zurich.

Flights to Catania

The direct flights to Catania are carried out by the airlines Aer Lingus, Air France, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Finnair, Iberia, Jet2, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Norwegian Air Sweden AOC, Ryanair, SWISS, Scandinavian Airlines, Transavia France, Vueling Airlines, EasyJet and Transavia from the airports of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Birmingham, Bristol, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Duesseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Helsinki, Leeds, London, Madrid, Manchester, Marsiglia, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna and Zurich.

Flights to Trapani

The direct flights to Trapani are carried out by the airline Ryanair from the airports of Brussels, Duesseldorf, London, Manchester and Stockholm.

Flights to

The direct flights to are carried out by the airline from the airports of .

Flights to

The direct flights to are carried out by the airline from the airports of .

Flight distances and average times

When flying, as mentioned, travel times are considerably reduced. Here are some average flight times from Milan and Rome to Sicily.

From Milan

Departing from airports in the Milan airport system – Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo – the average flight time to Sicily is just over an hour. For example, flying from Malpensa, the flight to Palermo takes around an hour and 15 minutes, the same for Trapani, covering an average distance of approximately 880 kilometres. The flight to Catania is slightly longer: almost 1,000 kilometres, covered in around an hour and a half.

From Rome

Flying with ITA Airways, excluding the few direct connections to certain airports, you’ll need to connect through Rome Fiumicino. From here, the actual flight time to Palermo and Trapani is 40 minutes for a distance of around 400 kilometres, whilst the flight to Catania takes around 50 minutes to cover approximately 530 kilometres.