For me I think PLAY. The flight is from Reykjavik to New York (SFW). Just seems like a weird route. You would think they would fly to JFK or even LGA.
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Honestly to me, there is a few that are just strange to me, like Emirates sending their B777-300ER from Dubai to Clark in the Philippines, Qatar sending their B787-8 to Edinburgh, Emirates sending their B777-300ER to Birmingham, Ethiopian flying their B787 from Addis Ababa to Manila via Hong Kong (the via Hong Kong is the strange part to me), Qatar Airways flying their B777F through Macau for multiple routes and so on, the list is endless.
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yeah those are interesting. another one is Milan to Newark on Emirates 77W.
Maybe Singapore/Frankfurt/ New York
Thats a Route i wanna do in IF
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I know it’s just a stopover but
Singapore-Manchester-Houston
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Probably once the A380 gets reworked.
I just feel really proud when I see Singapore Airlines’s planes in the US.
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Probably due to cost. Slots are much cheaper at secondary airports like SWF than places like JFK, LGA, or EWR.
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Just got another one, Delta sends their A350 to Phoenix from Minneapolis. That’s… idek how to explain that one
oh yeah, i watched Noel Phillips do that one.
that’s fair, it is expensive these days lmao 😂
PLAY’s network is optimized for connections through Reykjavík, meaning they need perfect timings at their destination airports. JFK is difficult to get those timings with their slot restrictions and LGA can’t receive international flights unless the origin airport has U.S. customs pre-clearance. LGA also has a rule limiting flights above 1,500 miles except on Saturdays.
With SWF, PLAY can serve the New York City area with a bus transfer and likely operate with lower costs than if they were to fly to JFK/EWR.
Minnesota residents love Phoenix during the winter to escape the cold. I believe they stopped flying the A350 to PHX a few days ago as the IATA Summer season began.
Really, well that’s not surprising it gets super cold in Minnesota and hot in phoenix so i guess that works.
I have the explanation you need, and it the same for all long haul Ethiopian Flights.
- Ethiopian Airlines does not fly non-stop from Ethiopia to the US or East Asia, they stop in Hongkong, Lomé or Dublin for example. The only non-stop is the return flight.
- The explanation is that the altitude in Addis Ababa (2400m/7900ft) meaning that aircraft departing ADD will need an enormous amount of power to takeoff, which is simply impossible at such altitudes, and Ethiopian does not want to sacrifice seat/cargo capacity. So they prefer making a stop for their Ultra Long Haul routes.
- Ethiopian is not the only airline doing this: Emirates comes to my mind as an example, their route DXB-BCN-MEX probably makes a stop in BCN for the same reasons mentionned previously. Turkish airlines aswell, on both their routes: IST-MEX-CUN-IST, the 777-300ER used on the route can simply not takeoff with the sufficient amount of fuel for the 14 hour return flight to Istanbul, hence the stop in Cancun. Or TK’s route to Bogota (IST-BOG-PTY-IST) which stops at sea-level before the long haul back to Istanbul.
There are countless examples, KLM’s route to Quito: AMS-UIO-GYE-AMS
I hope you get it now !
Cheers !
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That would make sense for longer routes but would the stop not normally be in a shorter distance? The difference between stopping in Hong Kong and Manila would be would be max 30-60 mins I think. To me it would make more sense to have the flight to Bangkok just continue to Manila as that would be more in the same direction. But that is interesting to know! Thank you for the explanation!
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Well it allows Ethiopian to serve Hong Kong, as Bangkok already has a regular service from ADD, basically killing two birds with one stone
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This is true, but very strange as the Bangkok one continued to Hong Kong already. I would not have thought there was that much demand. But fair enough. Just to confirm I am not arguing with you here, did not want to insinuate I am. Just extremely curious is all!
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Ah I didn’t know that ! It might be possible that it was cargo flights, as Ethiopian uses their passenger aircraft for cargo a lot. We’ll probably never know!
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Noone will ever know the mind of an airline CEO. I thought I heard a rumour that they were planning to make Hong Kong a focus city a while ago, planning to go to Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul through Hong Kong as well. But could not find anything when I tried to google. Oh well.
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how are these weird?? some back thoughts would be good, such as the EDI QR788, coming from Scotland i dont think this is weird at all lol
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