Replacing MYSQL table with data from another table - no downtime I have two tables with identical structures: 

Table1 and Table2

id INT PRIMARY KEY, 
a TINYINT, 
b TINYINT, 
c TINYINT  


Table1 is actively being used by queries from other sessions; Table2 is not referenced/accessed by anything else.  My goal is to end up with just Table1, but having the data from Table2.
(Note that Table2 and Table1 do not have the same set of id-PRIMARY KEY.)  

What is the best way to do this without risking Table1 not existing momentarily for other sessions? 

I know I can do something like:

DROP TABLE Table1; 
ALTER TABLE Table2 RENAME Table1;


But am not sure how to ensure nothing tries to query Table1 while it doesn't exist or is empty.  Do I use transactions or lock the tables or something else?  (Ideally, I'd want any other sessions' queries to return either old Table1 or new Table1 data rather than failing.)

I am using CodeIgniter in PHP to make the calls.

UPDATE:
Looks like 
this post answers it using a method from the MySQL RENAME TABLE Documentation:

RENAME TABLE Table1 TO Table1_old, Table2 To Table1;


And then I can DROP Table1_old at my leisure
How about a view? Point your application at the view and then alter the view at an instant when there is no access to point to table2. Once that is done, you could drop table1.