- On some routes, there are no direct flights. E.g. you cannot fly direct from Edinburgh, UK to Budapest, Hungary.
-
There may not be direct routes on certain days of the week. -
Sometimes the direct flight is full with all seats sold. -
Sometimes the direct routes are inconvenient for a business traveler. E.g. the earliest direct flight from Belfast, UK to Paris, France departs at 1240, arriving in Paris at 1700, not convenient for a day of business, but by departing at 0655 and changing planes in Birmingham, the Belfast-based traveler can be in Paris by 1115. In any of these situations, you will have to book a connecting flight instead. Connecting Flights A connecting flight means changing planes and flight numbers en route. As some direct flights only operate on certain days of the week, it may be necessary for a business traveler to take a connecting flight in order to travel on the date which best suits their plans. As an example, a traveler wants to travel from Amsterdam to Sydney arriving on Saturday so that they have Sunday to recover from jetlag before business meetings commence on Monday. There are no direct flights to suit the traveler, so they choose to take a connecting flight. These flights are published as two or more linked flight numbers. The connecting flight shown below, both operated by Malaysian Airlines (MH) involve a change in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  The first leg of the trip is on flight number MH 17. It departs from Amsterdam on Friday at 1200 and arrives in Kuala Lumpur at 0740. Our traveler leaves the aircraft with all the other passengers, into Kuala Lumpur's main airport building and onto the transit lounge to wait for her next flight without needing to collect her baggage. The second leg departs from Kuala Lumpur at 0940, 2 hours after arrival. Flight number MH 133 flies straight to Sydney with no interim stops and arrives there at 2035 (local Sydney time) the next day, Saturday. The whole trip has taken 22 hrs and 35 minutes. Let's look at a choice of flights from Frankfurt to Sydney below. All except one are connecting flights (see the two red aircraft). They're listed in order of departure times, with 0745 first. The last column shows the actual journey time. It is easy to display the flights in order of journey time by clicking on the 'elapsed time' button.
Details to note on the OAG Travel Planner page display above: -
Two aircraft indicate a connecting flight. -
Connecting flights show two different flight numbers. -
Arrival time in Sydney (local time). +1 means next day, + 2 means arrival two days after departure! -
"Equip" column shows type of aircraft used on both flights -
Click "availability" to check if seats are available on this flight. -
"Depart" column shows departure time from starting airport (in local time) -
"Via" column shows the city where the traveler will change planes -
"Elapsed Time" is the actual journey time To find out how long the business traveler will have at the connecting (or "transit") airport, click on the flight numbers. If we clicked on the first line showing BA901/BA7372 with a connection at LHR, we'll see: 
1. First flight arrives in LHR at 08.35 2. Second flight departs LHR at 11.15 Some routes involve two connections - a double transfer. See below an example from Edmonton Canada to Paris France with two changes of plane. 
All flights are with the airline Northwest (NW). There are other ways of making this trip, such as changing planes only once with a single transfer in either Toronto or Montreal. Why is a traveler choosing a longer journey? Almost certainly to save money! If the complete journey is with the same airline the fare may be lower. (Making a connection with the same airline is called "online" - changing to a different airline is called "interline"). Some More Reasons Why Connecting Flights are Choosen: -
To get a cheaper fare. -
The route with a transfer connection is actually quicker than the direct flight. This will only happen if the direct flight has a lot of interim stops. -
The business traveler has personal preferences about airlines. It may be the level of comfort or service or perhaps he is a member of a frequent flyer program and wants to build up his points. Minimum Connecting Times When connections, like those seen earlier, are published, there is always enough time allocated for the traveler to catch the next flight. Each international airport has a range of 'minimum connecting times' varying between 20 minutes and over 2 hours. The length of time depends on whether the traveler's connecting flight is to a different airline ('interline') or if they're arriving on an international flight and changing to a domestic one. Security and immigration formalities will also affect the minimum connecting time. Because all these times have already been calculated, you don't need to worry about minimum connecting times. Just choose any published connection and your traveler will catch his next flight. If his first flight is delayed, the airport will do everything they can to speed the traveler through to the second flight. Failing that, they'll get him onto a later flight to the destination. Hint: All connecting flights MUST be issued on one airline ticket to be valid.
| 
|
