Getting to Riga from USA
 

Hello Flyertalk!
Long time reader, first time poster. I lived in Latvia year as an exchange student, and had tickets to me provided by an organization that were EWR-CPH-RIX round trip. I am going back this summer, including a stop in Germany for a few days to meet with friends. What is the cheapest way to get to Riga from Boston or JFK? I live near SJC but I'd be flying out of the east coast. So far all I can find are Finnair through HEL, but id like to include a stop in Germany at least one of the ways there. My biggest question is about Air Uzbekistan, it seems that everyone in Latvia i talk to knows that they fly to JFK from RIX, but nobody knows how to buy the tickets! Anybody have any idea what prices are on the JFK-RIX nonstop and if its a reliable airline?
Thank you, and apologies if this is not in the correct section.

I'd fly Finnair over Air Uzbekistan any day.

If you are considering traveling to Germany, why not check out flights to Germany and then look into discount European airlines like RyanAir, Air Berlin, Wizzair to get to Riga.

Also consider Lot, but you may have to connect through Warsaw. Icelandic Airways may even fly to Riga.

Just some thoughts.

Uzbekistan Airways direct flight JFK-RIX can be bought for about $825 r/t, any travel agent should be able to sell it to you.

You can also find a cheap(er) ticket to Germany or somewhere else in Europe and fly Air Baltic to RIX and back from there. You can get BT-tickets to or from Europe for less than €150 r/t.

Try searching on www.sidestep.com or www.momondo.com for cheap flights.

Cheers!

Might be cheapest to go through LHR, I would assume the cheapest trans-Atlantic flights go through London?

Then jump on a Ryanair flight from STN. If you don't want to stay in London, tou could get the tube to Liverpool St and jump on a Terravision bus out to STN. Total cost one-way LHR-STN within London would be around £10.

Else: check Lufthansa, LOT, Finnair, Czech... They all fly to RIX.

I don't think anyone's going to argue with that!

Finnair's not bad, but if you're planning to go to Germany anyway, the LH ticket (normally more expensive than AY, at least these days) may save you money in the end.

As for $825 r/t JFK-RIX on Air Uzbekistan: I don't know when the OP was planning to fly, but plugging in some random February dates on Finnair's website gives prices as low as $710.

You could also do JFK-FRA on Lufthansa and then go FRA-RIX on AirBaltic.

Is there bus or train service from Helsinki to Riga?

That may be another option to save yourself from Air Uzbekistan.

I wonder if any of the people blasting "Air Uzbekistan" (actually Uzbekistan Airways) have ever actually flown them. The JFK-RIX route is on a 767. The airline is joining SkyTeam next year.

If you don't want to do that, but still want to fly, Air Baltic is probably going to be the connection you could make to Western Europe for cheap.

Or you can take a night train from Berlin to Warsaw, and take a train from there to Riga through Lithuania.

It's not so much that I haven't flown them as that I haven't -heard- of them. Considering that Finnair is a known quantity with decent service, and costs $100 less for the same route, why experiment?

Paying an extra $100 for non-stop service, particularly trans-atlantic, is not unheard of.

They may be fine as an airline, but I would hesitate to fly the airline of such a repressive dictatorship.

+1 for Air Baltic.

Perfectly functional LCC (and a large step up from Ryan Air) the two times I've flown them and they seem to get around Europe pretty well at decent prices.

bus/train would be a long trip via st petersburg ;)

there's a ferry across the gulf, though! it'd be followed by a bus to riga - 5 hours or so. the whole process would take a long time...

airbaltic serve the region, and they're cheap.

As far as I am aware there are currently no train links between Lithuania and Latvia.

You can get from Warsaw to Vilnius by train (daytime service, VERY slow, and not too comfortable once you've changed onto a Lithuanian train just after the border). You can then get from Vilnius to Klaipeda, near the Latvian border, on a very fast and comfortable train, but once you're there that's it.

Air Baltic has a good reputation, so if you want to spend time in Germany as well then a Transatlantic flight to a convenient German airport and a separate ticket on Air Baltic might be your best bet.

Or you could use Ryanair for the last leg... but I wouldn't!

Check out bahn.de

That's what I did, extensively, before our journey through Poland/Lithuania/Latvia just a few weeks ago!

However, I partly stand corrected as I have now been reminded that there is a once-a-day service from Vilnius to Daugavpils, in the evening... too late to connect to any other places in Latvia (which is probably why I'd forgotten about it - we looked at it and said "no use"). Using this service it would take 24 hours to get from Warsaw to Riga. From what I read when I did the research for our trip there used to be a more direct route.

Taking the train to Riga would, undoubtedly, be quite a nice adventure... but probably not do-able for someone who just wants to get there!