Flying to Australia without a stopover

Gertcha_2

Unfortunately there's no way of doing this trip without some form of touchdown, change of plane etc. For me personally, I have to break the journey each way, just can't stand the prospect of getting on a plan again after 14 hours, and I love flying.

If you have a very good travel agent that you know well, and I mean a travel agent, not an online company, see if they can purchase you a ticket that originates in Europe, Paris for example. The prices from Europe are generally cheaper than the UK and because their Market is different, the peak season dates are slightly different to ours, so where you may be paying a peak season rate over here, it may not be in Europe for another couple of days. All you need to do then is purchase yourself a ticket to Paris or Frankfurt for example. It's a longer journey all in all, but I recommended this to a friend who saved himself and o/h £600 a couple of years ago.

Lou85

I flew to Cairns from Glasgow on my own in August. I was scared of flying at the time and the longest i'd ever flown was about 4 hours. Also it was the first time i was flying on my own. I was a bit scared at first but i was SO excited about going that the fear kind of died down and the thought of getting there took over. I flew BA/Qantas and on the way i had a 5 hour stopover in Singapore. To be honest, i didnt like the stopover as i had no idea where anything was, had a language barrier as no one could understand my accent and had to wait about for a couple of hours with my backpack before the check in opened for the last leg of the flight. It was about a 30 hour journey going and once i arrived i had jet lag for about 4 days however i think it only lasted that long because i was on the go from the minute i got there rather than having a day to relax. Also en route to Cairns we stopped for a refuel and to let people off in Darwin which was really annoying as we all had to get off the flight and walk round with our passports again to re-board the same flight in the same seat but i suppose it got us off the plane for 50 minutes or so.

On the way back, it was a much shorter flight. I flew directly from Sydney to Singapore where i only had an hour stopover which was similar to the stopover in Darwin. The flight from Singapore to London was almost 14 hours so i was flying practically non stop for about 21 hours which was totally knackering. Once in London i had about 3 hours to kill before my flight to Glasgow but by then i was just dying to get home and the wait was very frustrating (especially when you are surrounded by businessmen in suits and you are feeling disgusting as you've not had a shower in about 24 hours!) I flew the longest part of the flight with BA outbound and Qantas inbound and found Qantas to be better for leg room and service. Also my Qantas flight was less busy so it meant that there was no one sitting in the middle seat. My only problem was that i was sitting at the window and i have a weak bladder so didnt want to keep waking the person in the aisle seat up for me to go to the loo so the flight was not easy! I must say doing that long haul flight on my own got me over my fear of flying - i still dont like it much but im not as terrified as i once was!

Next time i go, i probably won't fly directly without a stopover but that is purely because i want to see a bit of other cities while i'm there. I recommend flying directly especially if you only have a few weeks there because if you stopover, you probably won't do anything in the stopover city except sleep in the hotel whereas if you fly direct then you can sleep when you get there knowing that you don't have anymore flying to do for another few weeks!

PS - you'll love Oz, i loved it so much that i'm looking into emigrating there! :j

Fitzio

I flew to Sydney with Japan Airlines (JAL) a few years ago with a 3 hour stopover in Tokyo airport. I slept the whole journey! They had to wake me up to feed me. The flight from Heathrow didn't leave until around 7pm, but I flew from Glasgow on BMI at around 9am so I had a whole day in Heathrow on my own. I think I was so tired from being up so early that it was easy to sleep. Also, because I was at Heathrow so early, I was first to check in and asked for an upgrade. They gave me 3 seats to myself to Tokyo, then business class from Tokyo to Sydney. If you are early, you could always ask if they can upgrade because your wife is nervous about flying. You never know your luck.

On the return leg, I stayed overnight in a hotel at Tokyo airport. The hotel was lovely and it was a nice break, but I wouldn't do it en route to Australia as it's a bit of a waste of time if you don't get to see more of the city. I was seated in the middle of a row of 4 seats, and it was quite uncomfortable. Get an aisle seat if you can't get an upgrade!

gron1979

Just wondering where you are getting these cheapish flights from. We are trying to go to australia for a belated honeymoon. Get married end of august but would love to go to australia for a few weeks at christmas. If anyone knows of any good sites or places to ring for flights to aus, please let me know...thanks

littlereddevil

SarahLou22 wrote: »

I have family in Perth and so the incentive to get over is probably a little more than if you are travelling for a holiday and so we always do the whole thing in one go.

To be honest we did once have a stop over for one night and it simply wasn't worth it (it was a freebie) as ther wasn't time to do/see anything and the time difference was just confusing!

I am lucky that i can sleep anywhere, however it would be interesting to know how far your wife has previously flown? My b/f had only flown 4hrs before and we recently flew what i would class as long haul (14hrs+) and he was amazed at the difference in the plane/quality of service/entertainment etc. Does she know what she can expect? Hopefully she will be pleasantly suprised It may be worth showing her some of the "extras" they put on for long haul and if she is as geeky as me the plans of the plane/menus etc. Final
trick maybe to spend some of the £500 saved on a treat for her to make the trip more bearable (pashmina, nice face cream, foot cream etc)
Have a lovely trip

Perth is a lot nearer than Sydney/Melbourne/brisbane etc so not nearly so bad. I never have a stopover cos I just want to get there.And I can't sleep on planes either so it is pretty grim

duchy

Most international airports DO have showers available either free or for a small charge (including Heathrow). Makes a huge difference to the travelling experience.

ems2

https://www.seatguru.com has details of every plane with every airline that might help with seats to ask for, and as always if you dont ask you dont yet so try for a free upgrade when checking in and when boarding

ifonlyitwaseasier

i find singapore airlines the best for the all in one trip.

lovely servie and you normally end up with about 3 hours between flights which is plenty to wander round Changi airport, (fab place, totally agree with the earlier poster it Is a mall)

have a great holiday!!!