Flying to Sydney from Dublin??

CKhalvashi

Murphy_The_Cat said:

CKhalvashi said:

Murphy_The_Cat said:

CKhalvashi said:

LOT Polish are generally one of the cheaper airlines on long haul routes for Business, primarily as their Singapore service isn't daily, therefore making it not brilliant for business travellers (never done a SIN with them, but most of their 787 routes are 2/3/4 times a week). They've got a good reputation (and are one of my 2 personal airlines of choice, the other is Wizz) and their long haul fleet is made up of latest generation aircraft. There would be a quick stop in Warsaw on this route, with the final leg on a Singapore Airlines aircraft.

This isn't however guaranteed, and you will need to do a full price search of the market (Google has a flights section as a starting point, be wary of using an online agency with any airline as premium fares are generally at least semi-flexible). The link you'll need to do this is here (link to Google Flights).

If you're worried about cost, cheapest fares typically start in Dublin, Milan and Oslo, which could save £100s over the cost of a London (for example) flight by self-positioning to the start point the day before.

Also have a look at CDG, CPH, ARN & AMS after your positioning flight.  There is every possibility that you could fly Biz for the. price of PE.

Of course there are other options. I tend to find (with Star Alliance at least) that starting from a non-Star Alliance hub (or those mentioned above) is generally a cheaper option, with LHR only really working for European flights (no personal experience with Dublin since BMI services effectively moved to OneWorld).

Checking most large cities (You can do a multiple search for several cities) in Europe can yield some amazing results. The other one I forgot to mention is currently Vienna, which due to becoming a battleground for 3 low cost airlines has led to some surprisingly cheap fares, at least pre-Covid.

The other thing to bear in mind is the accessability of the positioning flight - options from regional airports will be a lot more restrictive than from somewhere like Heathrow (I don't know enough about how well Dublin airport is served). Flying from Manchester may have 6/7 flights each day  to AMS/CDG but only one to Vienna, which is risky in the extreme for a positioning flight.

Looking this week (all information sourced from FR24, which can be found here, I haven't checked what has been cancelled and this is only for the selected cities mentioned)

AMS: 22 flights
ARN: 3 flights
CDG: 13 flights
CPH: 0 flights
MXP: 0 flights
OSL: 0 flights

This week is by no means a typical schedule for airlines, so this will be up to OP to assess for the dates they're looking at, ideally at the same time as looking at pricing for their flight to Aus.

Murphy_The_Cat

CKhalvashi said:

Murphy_The_Cat said:

CKhalvashi said:

Murphy_The_Cat said:

CKhalvashi said:

LOT Polish are generally one of the cheaper airlines on long haul routes for Business, primarily as their Singapore service isn't daily, therefore making it not brilliant for business travellers (never done a SIN with them, but most of their 787 routes are 2/3/4 times a week). They've got a good reputation (and are one of my 2 personal airlines of choice, the other is Wizz) and their long haul fleet is made up of latest generation aircraft. There would be a quick stop in Warsaw on this route, with the final leg on a Singapore Airlines aircraft.

This isn't however guaranteed, and you will need to do a full price search of the market (Google has a flights section as a starting point, be wary of using an online agency with any airline as premium fares are generally at least semi-flexible). The link you'll need to do this is here (link to Google Flights).

If you're worried about cost, cheapest fares typically start in Dublin, Milan and Oslo, which could save £100s over the cost of a London (for example) flight by self-positioning to the start point the day before.

Also have a look at CDG, CPH, ARN & AMS after your positioning flight.  There is every possibility that you could fly Biz for the. price of PE.

Of course there are other options. I tend to find (with Star Alliance at least) that starting from a non-Star Alliance hub (or those mentioned above) is generally a cheaper option, with LHR only really working for European flights (no personal experience with Dublin since BMI services effectively moved to OneWorld).

Checking most large cities (You can do a multiple search for several cities) in Europe can yield some amazing results. The other one I forgot to mention is currently Vienna, which due to becoming a battleground for 3 low cost airlines has led to some surprisingly cheap fares, at least pre-Covid.

The other thing to bear in mind is the accessability of the positioning flight - options from regional airports will be a lot more restrictive than from somewhere like Heathrow (I don't know enough about how well Dublin airport is served). Flying from Manchester may have 6/7 flights each day  to AMS/CDG but only one to Vienna, which is risky in the extreme for a positioning flight.

Looking this week (all information sourced from FR24, which can be found here, I haven't checked what has been cancelled and this is only for the selected cities mentioned)

AMS: 22 flights
ARN: 3 flights
CDG: 13 flights
CPH: 0 flights
MXP: 0 flights
OSL: 0 flights

This week is by no means a typical schedule for airlines, so this will be up to OP to assess for the dates they're looking at, ideally at the same time as looking at pricing for their flight to Aus.

I tried a random date in Oct to find 6/7 flights per day to CDG/AMS

Apintplease

Thankyou everyone for your help and insights so far

For those that may have missed the information, Im talking October 22

BC or a long lay over or more money to spend?   We have thought long and hard, we neither like long flights, both have various aches and pains where sitting in one position just becomes too uncomfortable after an hour or so, we have always paid for PE for a flight over 4 hours as we both do struggle ( worse was a 3 hour sit on a runway in EC with a 4 hour flight, thought Id never straighten lol )

We dont have to worry about accommodation in Oz so once we get there , other then the excessive costs of being in Sydney, plus wedding pressie , costs will only be personal spends - same as a Half board holiday really

Im looking more and more at Singapore Airlines. Emerites PE looks very nice, but its not been rolled out 

Being in NI, I said Dublin as flights are direct to Dubai then on to Sydney, most other airlines then you get dropped at Heathrow for up to 12 hrs. Flying London isn't a bother to us, we have friends and family there who will put us up overnight and do an airport run, but I do understand that Heathrow you are paying premium ?????

Im struggling to get Quantas et el to bring up a multi flight ticket price at the moment . Can anyone help me with the dates when October 22 flight dates are released?

And best of off, any tips on getting the best fares other then starting point?

I have never flown long haul ( never wanted to, now I have to ) so I really am lost

CKhalvashi

I am personally more experienced with Star Alliance than other alliances, mainly due to where I fly (being either in/East of Poland most of the time).

Several carriers fly to Dublin that will be able to get you to Aus with 2 stops, but I'm not sure anyone except Emirates (and possibly Qatar) will be able to get you there with 1 stop. 2 stops in general are cheaper than 1.

Looking at a recent-ish LOT booking on the LHR-WAW-MSQ route (last year), I had about a 2 hour stop in Warsaw on the way to Minsk, but arrived back into Warsaw early enough to catch the evening departure, but departed at 07:30 the following morning through choice. There was a flight about an hour after I came in, but decided to squeeze in an additional business meeting on the way back. Nothing generally needs to require an overnight stop, and you're better not limiting yourself to a single airline/alliance for a trip like this unless you have significant membership benefits.

Heathrow as a departure point does command a premium in general, but not always so. Tickets are generally released with mainline carriers about a year before.

Long Haul (outside of Europe, but excluding Georgia and Armenia), I've only flown with LOT in the last 3 years, as they've been cheapest every time.

Westin

“Im struggling to get Qantas et el to bring up a multi flight ticket price at the moment . Can anyone help me with the dates when October 22 flight dates are released?”

General rule of thumb is that schedule airline carriers will release fares and availability around 330-352 days out. Keep in mind that period needs to include your return flight date.

Unlike the EasyJet/RyanAir model then best fares don’t however necessarily come out those first days of being on sale. Often at first the full regular published fare. That said, I guess all might change given current situation.  

I have a feeling demand will initially be high for travel on the Kangaroo routes and with limited capacity. This may impact fares.

zagfles

Westin said:

Emirates have just launched a Premium Economy seat/cabin but it will probably be a long time before it is widely available across the fleet. That said their Business and Economy cabins are I feel both good. Emirates will give you the options of DUB DXB SYD PER DXB DUB with just the domestic Australia sector flown by Qantas (or possibly Virgin Australia).

Singapore Airlines would be a good option to look at, connecting at LHR or a European gateway, then of course Singapore.  Our last Oz trip was due to be with them but sadly cancelled.

Qatar, Royal Brunei, Cathy and even Qantas viewed as suitable for your trip.

As well as planing for cabin comfort, perhaps look at breaking the trip with a stop over on route and sleeping in a proper bed at a hotel. Singapore might be worth looking at for this layover and the airline and Singapore tourist board even offers free/discounted hotel stay and tours. Alternatively a routing with a change of plane.  We have also done this in Hong Kong a couple of times.

If not wishing to layover then just a short stop of say two hour on-route marching around Dubai Airport will stretch your legs and possibly tire you for the next flight.

Of course if you can get into the mind set of a single 18h plus flight (in a comfortable seat) then there is the direct LHR PER LHR B787 flight on Qantas. They were also talking about direct to SYD pre pandemic. That might come back on the cards.  At the moment a step to far for me!

What a great trip to plan for. 

Also in Singapore the airport has a transit hotel which is airside, so you don't need to collect luggage or go through passport control etc. You book it by the hour so a daytime booking works, when we did it we arrived SIN early morning, about midnight UK time so ready for a kip, and booked it for 9 hours or so, got up late afternoon for the flight to NZ. Quiet rooms, no windows so you don't know it's daytime. Reasonable price too.

zagfles

Apintplease said:

Thankyou everyone for your help and insights so far

For those that may have missed the information, Im talking October 22

BC or a long lay over or more money to spend?   We have thought long and hard, we neither like long flights, both have various aches and pains where sitting in one position just becomes too uncomfortable after an hour or so, we have always paid for PE for a flight over 4 hours as we both do struggle ( worse was a 3 hour sit on a runway in EC with a 4 hour flight, thought Id never straighten lol )

We dont have to worry about accommodation in Oz so once we get there , other then the excessive costs of being in Sydney, plus wedding pressie , costs will only be personal spends - same as a Half board holiday really

Im looking more and more at Singapore Airlines. Emerites PE looks very nice, but its not been rolled out 

Being in NI, I said Dublin as flights are direct to Dubai then on to Sydney, most other airlines then you get dropped at Heathrow for up to 12 hrs. Flying London isn't a bother to us, we have friends and family there who will put us up overnight and do an airport run, but I do understand that Heathrow you are paying premium ?????

Im struggling to get Quantas et el to bring up a multi flight ticket price at the moment . Can anyone help me with the dates when October 22 flight dates are released?

And best of off, any tips on getting the best fares other then starting point?

I have never flown long haul ( never wanted to, now I have to ) so I really am lost

First off don't assume long haul economy is anything like short haul esp Easyjet or Ryanair. Even I wouldn't go Ryanair for 12 hours! Long haul economy, certainly on the flag carriers, is far better. More legroom, usually free food and drink, personal screens with good entertainment selection. Also you aren't tied to your seat, you can go for a wander every now and again, eg pop down to the galley for a drink and have a chat with the staff who are far less busy than on short haul flights. The A380s have quite a bit of room at the back for standing, stretching etc.

You can check seat pitches etc on https://www.seatguru.com if you are tall and have issues with legroom, also the layout, eg the A380s have an economy section at the back of the upper deck which is 2-4-2 so if travelling as a couple you can sit together without being sat next to a stranger if you don't want to. If you want more legroom you could book the front or emergency exit rows, there's usually an extra charge for extra legroom seats but nowhere near the extra for going PE or BC. But I'm nearly 6 foot and never had an issue with legroom on long haul.