From Layover to Stayover – Travel Weekly
I had a long conversation with the author for this lengthy and interesting piece about stopover programs. If you have any interest in their evolution, then you might enjoy it.
Cranky on the Web: Discovering Stopovers
8 comments on “Cranky on the Web: Discovering Stopovers”
Seems permitting a stop shouldn’t be an issue since it doesn’t cost the airline. Plus they don’t have to worry about misconnects if a passenger is stopping at a HUB city and not transferring.
Modern plane seats are about as comfortable as park benches. For a couple of hours, one can put up with the discomfort, but on a flight of any more than four hours, one needs a stopover just to get one’s back straightened out.
… the Perth – LHR non stop takes 17 hours on average — far better than breaking the journey in the Mid East and it is all, entirely, in darkness …
I can tell you that the chances of me flying non-stop between London and Perth are somewhere between zero and minus 450, with the real number being closer to minus 450.
I did it with Copa, at least once, when it wasn’t official, flying from Mexico to buenos Aires, however, now that airline has sky high fares! Sometimes it’s even less expensive flying through the US, did that some months ago through Houston, thanks to United, $820 round trip!
I haven’t looked at fares recently, but in my experience fares from the US to Argentina, Chile, and Southern Brazil are generally significantly more expensive than fares on flights of similar length from the US to Europe. That’s a shame, as there are some really great destinations in that part of South America (also Bolivia- it’s worth going to La Paz just for the experience of flying out of El Alto, the world’s highest international airport at at 13,325 feet above sea level). Also, those destinations are in similar timezones to the eastern half of the US, so jet lag is minimal.
Beyond the relatively lesser demand for flights from the US to much of that part of the world, I know I’ve read that the usual flight times and departure times from the US (e.g., red-eyes etc) are such that the planes going to those destinations often average fewer flight hours per day compared to planes doing transatlantic runs, so that may play a factor in fares as well.
How about Casablanca with Royal Air Maroc? The airline and airport were a little harried when I connected there over the winter after taking the new-ish Dulles-Casablanca flight, but it’s fairly convenient for connections to Europe and Africa. Maybe if they can get into an airline alliance and iron out some of the transfer issues (i.e. having to hang out at the transfer desk for 45mins-an hour to get my connection boarding pass).
When I was going from the US to Naples, Italy, I looked at Royal Air Maroc and really wanted to do a stopover of a few days there, but couldn’t make the schedules and time off work out.
Same with Turkish in Istanbul. I’d love to have a few days in Porto, Istanbul, Casablanca, Iceland, the Azores, etc, but don’t do many transatlantic trips at all and haven’t been able to make it work yet.