The Great Hunt: What flights have 'hidden' stopovers?

NiftyDigits

dushanko wrote: »

The MSE staff flew with Garuda Indonesia who operate their service from Gatwick to Jakarta via Amsterdam. I recently spoke to a manager who works for Garuda andI asked why they stop in Amsterdam and he said the reason is the Jakarta runway is not strong enough to take completely full tank of fuel on take off on the way to London so they need to stop in Amsterdam to refuel. It is also a clever way how to serve two destinations with one plane at the same time on the so called "thin routes", where they might struggle to fill up the plane.


Many other airlines do stop in their long haul operations. BA flies to Abu Dhabi and then the same plane goes to Muscat in Oman and they have many destination with a stop in Caribbean, however they are marked as direct flights.
You will not encounter this issue with on low-cost airlines as they only operate point-to-point flights. This tactic is also very common in US and it is all about wording. I bought a flight from New York to LA, which said DIRECT and it made a stop in Dallas. You need to look for wording which says NON-STOP, rather than direct. The flight, which makes the stop even keep the same flight number for both legs and is allowed to take on new passengers at the stop, however the stops are usually under one hour and you do not change the plane and you are allowed to stay in in some cases.


BA service from London City to NC also makes a refuel stop in Shannon, as London City runway is too short and fully loaded plane would not take off from the short runway (but they are fine to land, as the tank is almost empty by the time they reach London from New York, therefore no stop on the return).

Flew with them from London to Amsterdam. Very nice. Much better than flying on a small, cramped plane.

richardw

It's not hidden, I knew the aircraft stopped at AMS.

richardw

GwylimT wrote: »

We fly Royal Brunei to Borneo, there is a stop over in dubai to change staff and refuel, it takes around 30-40 minutes, obviously this is included in the journey time and its quite nice to have a quick change of scenery.

It's not hidden though.

I do feel that airlines and travel agents should get a passenger ticked agreement to this at time of booking because some could be very nervous flyers and an extra take off and landing could be too much for them.

Voyager2002

Peter_Divall wrote: »

Going to Sydney in the New Year, stopping off 2 nights in Singapore, Travel agent told me I had to pay extra for the flight, because I was breaking my flight, is that correct.

Probably.

Although there may be other fares where you pay extra for NOT breaking the journey... And there may be a price difference between breaking the outbound and return journeys.

Try asking the airline directly, and ask Singapore airlines if they can offer a TIC deal for what you want to do: these fares are generally not offered on-line and can be very good value.

behelpful

Back in the eighties, a colleague of mine used to fly regularly from Glasgow to Berlin: 2 hours.
Making one booking he was offered a flight which took 3 hours; the travel agent assured him that, as it was a single flight number, it was direct. Knowing that this trick meant changing planes in Frankfurt, his response was "what's it do, circle Berlin for an hour?". Those of you who knew Berlin in the eighties, will appreciate the special sarcasm of this remark.

The moral is this: know how long it should take, don't believe flight numbers or travel agents

duchy

MSE_Sam_M wrote: »

MSE Nick recently thought he'd snagged a bargain-priced flight to Bali with one stopover in Jakarta, only to discover when he got to the airport that it also stopped in Amsterdam to 'refuel'.

We want to know what flight routes and airlines have disguised stopovers.

Have you experienced any?

I'm amazed someone with such highly honed research skills like Nick who often posts Moral Dilemmas for the MSE team got caught out.

GwylimT

richardw wrote: »

It's not hidden though.

I do feel that airlines and travel agents should get a passenger ticked agreement to this at time of booking because some could be very nervous flyers and an extra take off and landing could be too much for them.

It was actually, I booked over the phone with the airline and it was never mentioned despite asking as my wife is in a wheelchair so we need to know each stop and what happens on each stop.

tain

Where would you find out about these stop offs? I've got some long haul flights booked in January and I'm curious to see if they include a stop off.

eDicky

Peter_Divall wrote: »

Going to Sydney in the New Year, stopping off 2 nights in Singapore, Travel agent told me I had to pay extra for the flight, because I was breaking my flight, is that correct.

That's normal. This is the true meaning of a 'stopover', where you break your journey for a few days' stay. In general it costs more than the same ticket with no stopover.

It's a little confusing here when a scheduled stop on a direct flight is referred to as 'stopover'. Also 'direct flight' does not necessarily mean non-stop, but simply no change of flight/aircraft on the way.

eDicky

tain wrote: »

Where would you find out about these stop offs? I've got some long haul flights booked in January and I'm curious to see if they include a stop off.

Scheduled stops are often mentioned in the 'flight details' during the booking process, otherwise you can Google the flight number and find many websites detailing the flight.