Australia

[yansee]

Hoping to go to Oz Dec 2014,through medical grounds don`t fancy 22hr flight,can it be done for the same price if you break up the flight or is it much cheaper to fly direct,can`t get prices on line yet for December ?

[bednobs]

as far as i know, there are no non-stop flights to Australia anyway, so you hve to break the flight up - traditionally in Hong kong, singapore or LA if going the other way

[Buenchico]

It's a long time since I flew to Oz but Qantas used to allow travellers one stopover, in each direction, without additional flight charges. (I seem to recall that you were limited to a maximum of a few days for each stopover).

You can check 'stopover' flight prices with several airlines online.
e.g:
http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/multi-city-flight-search/global/en
and
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/fx/public/en_gb?eId=111024
and
http://www.singaporeair.com/planBooking-flow.form?execution=e1s2

Alternatively try emailing the airlines:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/askbainter/public/en_gb?refevent=help
(Click the 'email us' tab)
[email protected]
(Qantas doesn't seem to have a readily accessible email address. Phone their London office on 0208 600 4300)

[VHG]

If you are flying from the UK to Australia then you will probably have to have one break, but that will still leave you with one long "leg" of probably 15 to 17 hours.

Two of my family flew from UK to Australia and stopped at Dubai for a few hours.

I think the UK to Dubai leg was 5 or 6 hours, then the Dubai to Australia leg was I think 16 or 17 hours (cant remember the exact figures).

You could do two breaks, maybe Dubai, then Hong Kong, but then the total flight will probably take you a long time, probably 2 days or more.

Then you have the same problem coming back.

You can easily "lose" two days on the flight out, and the same on the flight back.

In fact I think you lose more going out as you are going forward on the time zone. My family members left on a certain day and did not land in Australia till two days later (flew off late Wednesday and landed on Friday I think)

[yansee]

Thank you all, beuenchico thanks for the info.

[jno]

flying Emirates with a stop in Dubai is common these days. You used to be able to fly JAL via Tokyo, which was the quickest route, but I don't know if it's still going.

[spudqueen]

Have a look at Finnair. Because of the curvature of the earth the flights from Helsinki to Hong Kong and Singapore are a lot quicker than going via Dubai. And it's a short hop from Manchester (presumably they fly from London aswell) to Helskini.

[askyourgran]

It's a while since we flew to Oz from Heathrow, on the way out we stopped in Singapore for four days before joining another plane for the flight to Australia, passengers who were flying straight on to Oz were allowed off at the airport (my backpacking passenger got off for a smoke) and reboarding for Oz while the plane took on fuel. On the way back from Australia we broke our journey home and stopped off in Bangkok for 3/4 days then rejoined the flght to Heathrow. It gets tedious flying for approx 13 hours at a stretch and it was a nice break to see another country, although I wish we had stayed in Fiji instead of Bankok.

[angie55]

We've done it twice, once with Malaysian Airlines stopping in Kuala Lumpur (makes the last part of the journey only 7-8 hours). The other time with Virgin stopping in Hong Kong. Both stops were only for a couple of hours while the plane was cleaned and refueled.

[jno]

there's usually only an hour or two on the ground to refuel and change crew but you should be able to stop over. Try phoning long-haul travel agents like Trailfinders or Travelbag and asking for ideas.

[yansee]

Once again thank you all,very helpful ideas.