Airliners.net

Have you ever been a non-rev before??? If you have then your know why I wrote this topic, if you haven't then let some of the other Airliners.net patrons tell you about their longest day.

Mine was a perfectly easy flight from DFW-DEN that turned out completely wrong. My family and I connected through CVG, and SLC just to get there.

The morning Delta flight was oversold so we flew to CVG to catch the somewhat full Delta flight to DEN. Sooo after a 4 hr. layover at DFW we were off, what a disaster, an Unted flight had cancelled and everyone was being booked on our Delta flight to DEN.

So after another 5 hr. layover at CVG we flew to SLC and took the red-eye into DEN that arrived at the jolly hour of 2 A.M.!!! We were very frustrated and settled on never flying into DEN again, and instead flying into COS.

That was my experience, how about yours!?!?!

~DeltaBoy777~

IAH-Diego Garcia. No comment on why I was there.

In the 70's, my Mom and I non-reved from PIA to DEN. Left PIA before 8am. We got bumped somewhere in Iowa, spent the better part of the day crisscrossing Iowa, Illinois and possibly Missouri, (I was small and don't remember much) and finally got to DEN after 10pm.

LHR-IAD. Our UA 772 was diverted to PIT for 6 hours last summer due to straight line winds at Dulles. The Customs people wouldn't let us disembark the aircraft for security reasons. It ended up being about 11 hours of flying, or 17 with the 6 hours of being on the ground. In all fairness to United, my family and I had a wonderful time on the aircraft. UAL did an excellent job of keeping us informed and happy. Great Job United!!!

Thanks For Flying,
Kris

Mine went like this.

About 1.00 am, America West A320 from Las Vegas to Phoenix, 7.00 am from Phoeinx to Salt Lake City on a Delta 757, after a couple of hours in SLC a Delta 763 to Portland, another couple of hours here then onto a Delta MD-11 for the flight to Tokyo. Once in Tokyo I had another 2 hours before boarding a JAL 744 to Hong Kong !!!

VERY LONG DAY !!

Mine was purely by choice, at least in terms of hours. RDU-PIT via DCA in 1972. I left RDU at 0630 and arrived in PIT the next morning at 0800. Of course I did spend the day at the one and only Dulles Trade Show. Still, have you ever spent 12 hours overnight at National airport?

The longest that didn't involve 24 hour layovers was when I, again by choice, flew PDX-SEA-GEG-SEA-LAX-SAN-PHX-TUS in 1975. I had to fly a NW 747 and DC-10, a Western DC-10 and 720 and a United DC-8-60. PHX-TUS was the dime a dozen FL Convair 580 though. I wouldn't do it again either.

1. ATL-LGW: BCal cancelled due to WX so I flew Eastern to LAX, spent the night on the floor of the terminal then caught BCal LAX-LGW. 24 hours.

2. Prinair SXM-MIA: got bumped in St. Kitts, flew back to SXM with no money (very young and stupid), overnighted somehow then flew Eastern out the next day....never so glad to see an A300 in my life! About 24 hours.

ORD-ANC-NRT-MNL (1981) on NW 747. Technical stop in anchorage and change of plane at NRT.


MNL-HNL-SFO (1973) on PR DC-8.

Mine longest day of flying didn't include any delays. Last January I flew MCO-ATL-CLE-BWI.

I took the 5:50AM Delta flight to Atlanta connected to the 8:00AM back home to Cleveland. I ran home for a couple of hours then headed back to CLE for my 6:15PM Continental flight to Baltimore for the Vikings/Ravens Monday Night Football Game. It was a long day, to say the least.

My longest was some 25 + Hours (including layovers)

Capetown, SA - Johanneburg, SA.
JNB - Singapore
Singapore - Sydney
Sydney - Melborune


Longest Single flight: US west coast to Sydney

Quickest Long trip: PHL-ORD-ICN-NRT one night over, then the next day - NRT-Seattle - MSP-PHL (Not much luggage required and my body coming back seemed to meet my body going over).

Longest delay: Good old United - 12 hours in London for a 8 hour LHR-IAD flight.

Longest trip in shortest time:

PHL-SFO-ICN-NRT-SIN-JNB-DUR-JNB-FRA-AMS-IAD-PHL in twelve days. Three days later I did the above "Quickest Long trip". The equivalent of almost two Round the World trips in about two weeks.

Usually, flights to Asia (especially small cities in Asia) from the United States make for long days. I know everytime I fly to Manila or Cebu (Philippines) from Chicago, I usually have to take a day off my calendar just for travel time. Of course in reality, I'm really losing 2 days due to the time change.

So for instance, on my last trip there, I left my house at 9:30AM for a flight that departed at 12:30PM to HKG. The flight was 16 hours so this meant that I had already been travelling for about 19 hours. And then there is a 4 hour transit at HKG, so we are up to 23 hours of travel now. And then finally the 2 hour flight to MNL. So that is approximately 25 hours of travel time before I even get to the hotel. And, of course, that's assuming that there are no delays. So that's pretty darn long going without a shower or a shave.  

Mine is definately a day working at Southwest! It was about two months ago and it was a SEVEN LEG DAY!!! AHHHHHHH here is goes:

HRL-AUS-DAL-TUL-DAL-LBB-DAL-MSY!

Wheeew did I ever have a good old ice cold beer when I got to New Orleans!  

I've had several long days flying. Most were flying from Singapore to San Francisco, which I calculated as around 24 hours. I used to say that it didn't make much difference after 16, because you were numb. I started to fly JAL via NRT, and it was much nicer. I got a short (6am to 4 pm) stay over at the Nikko Narita Hotel. Just getting a shower and brushing my teeth made a world of difference.

I had one flight from Frankfurt to Singapore, via ZHR-Athens-Kuwait-Karachi-BKG-SIN. That was a very long day (we fired our travel agent after that fiasco.
My worst case in recent history was in 1998. I flew from MKE to SFO via ORD. I left Appleton to drive to Milwaukee in the morning (around 6 AM PDT). Help my cousin move into his apartment, and then got dropped off at the airport. I noticed most flights to ORD had been delayed, but mine went off on time. I got to ORD, and my flight had a three hour delay. O'Hare had been shut down all day, and just opened at 4 o'clock. I was one of the first flights to arrive. Our plane remained on schedule to leave 3 hrs late, but no gate. There was no gates for planes coming in, so we didn't have a plane. The plane finally came at 9 (5 hrs after getting to Chicago). The crew was out of hours, so the flight was cancelled. I got in line for a later flight. I ended up following the last person to get on the next flight, and I got the 11 o'clock flight. The other flight was cancelled as well.
It was 11:00, and they had managed to get every destination out, except of SFO and DEN. They had 4 flights (mostly full) all scheduled for both SFO and DEN. None of the 8 flights had gotten out. Eventually they got 2 767's out for SFO at midnight (8 hours after getting to Chicago), and I think 2 flights to Denver.
Anyway, to make a long story even longer (it takes me five minutes to tell you my name), our flight finally landed at 2:30am PDT. Notice that it was 3 hour flight (a record for me). I got home at 4am, a 22 hour trip!

I know the short one stop, two stop routes sometimes end up taking longer than the multiple route trips!! 22 hrs for my DFW-CVG-SLC-DEN flight!! When it only had to be DFW-DEN.

YYZ-DTW-LAX-SYD.....I was up for about 32 hours door to door.

23 December 1996
ORD-(MSN)-DSM-(MSN)-MKE-(MSN)-LSE-MSP-ORD

I was supposed to fly up and meet my parents in Chicago for Christmas that year since my dad had a 5 day layover there due to reduced holiday schedule. However, since we had nothing major planned until the 25th, I decided to nonrev up to MSN and meet some friends there for lunch on the 23rd morning at 8am, flying back to ORD in the evening. Loads on UA were wide open strangely enough, so I felt confident about the trip and bought my ID90. We left ORD on an Air Wisconsin BAe146 at 8am and were on approach to MSN about 40 mins later when it began hailing and we had to go around. We circled for over an hour while the hail turned to snow and then diverted to DSM for fuel. Back in the air and still circling MSN, we were informed that the airport was closed for now, so we diverted to MKE. UA had us set up with buses over to MSN and I finally got to the airport around 3pm and met up with my friends. Unfortunately, all flights OUT of MSN that evening had been cancelled due to weather, so we drove to a friend's place in Tomah, WI (about an hour north of Madison) where I spent the night. Next morning, flights out of MSN were still cancelled, so we headed over to LSE and I bought an ID90 for the AA flight to ORD at 1230pm. Unfortunately, ORD was now closed due to weather and that flight was also cancelled. Facing the prospect of being stranded in the middle of a Wisconsin blizzard for Xmas, I went over to NW and got another ID90 issued for Mesaba's LSE-MSP flight at 2pm. I got to MSP at around 3pm and spent 4hrs playing NBA Jam at the arcade there until ORD opened and they were able to accomodate a nonrev. I finally caught the 8pm A320 flight down and arrived back at our hotel around 1115pm on December 24. What a Christmas!

May 2001
BOM-DEL-HKG-LAX-BOS-YYZ

I was supposed to fly CX from BOM to YYZ via HKG, continuing to ATL a few days later on AA. Unfortunately, an *accident* by an AA agent cancelled my ENTIRE reservation, which I only discovered when I called to reconfirm 2 days in advance of the flights. Alas, BOTH my flights were now oversold and they were unable to rebook me on those, but AA offered me an alternate routing of BOM-DEL-HKG-LAX-BOS-YYZ-ORD-ATL. Due to a religious holiday in BOM, the local AA office was closed so I wound up nonrevving BOM-DEL on the 330am 744 redeye and getting the ticket reissued at the AA office in Delhi instead. I spent all day in DEL and then caught the DEL-HKG A330 redeye flight that night at 1130pm, arriving in HKG in the early hours of the morning. After about 6hrs in HKG, I caught yet another redeye from HKG-LAX on a 744 arriving in LAX the same day (due to international dateline) around lunchtime. After relaxing in the TWA Ambassadors Club for a few hours, I caught my FOURTH CONSECUTIVE REDEYE from LAX-BOS on a 757 at 10pm and finally connected to an American Eagle ERJ from BOS-YYZ arriving in Canada at 10am the following day. Total door-to-door journey time was just short of 65 hrs.

October 2001
ATL-PHX-LAS-ATL-TPA-MCO-CVG-SLC-ABQ-DFW-ATL-TPA-DTW-JFK-LHR

Due to a bunch of rescheduled trips over September 11, I wound up getting myself scheduled on a set of back-to-back trips from hell in early October. I caught a 3pm Delta 757 flight from ATL to PHX, arriving in PHX in time for a dinner meeting there. Overnight at the Hilton and a lunch meeting the next day in Scottsdale, followed by a 5pm hop on a 763 up to LAS on DL and then the LAS-ATL 757 redye arriving at 530am, connecting to a 7am 764 flight to TPA. Another meeting in Tampa, followed by a Delta Express 732 hop across to MCO where I was supposed to take a Delta 777 at 1pm up to ATL and continue on to ABQ for the Balloon Fiesta. Unfortunately the flight was oversold, so I volunteered for the bump and took $500 in compensation for a reroute. I was rebooked on the 2pm 763 to CVG connecting to a 738 on CVG-ABQ, but the first flight ran late and I misconnected in Cincy and got rerouted on a 757 from CVG-SLC. At Salt Lake City, I caught the 10pm Skywest CRJ (the FIRST revenue flight of N435SW incidently) down to ABQ arriving around midnight where I overnighted at the crappy Motel 6. The next morning, I caught the colorful Balloon Fiesta and then headed back to the airport for my Delta 738 flight to ATL. Unfortunately, the line at security were horribly long and I wound up missing the flight and getting rerouted on a 733 to DFW in a middle seat, connecting to a 763 to ATL in another middle seat. Headed home at ATL for a quick change of clothes and to swap out laundry and then back to the airport for an 11pm 764 flight down to TPA again where I overnighted at the Doubletree. Next morning I had a quick meeting in TPA before an 11am NW flight to DTW on a 757, which also ran late and I missed my connection to JFK. They rerouted me back onto Delta for the 3pm CRJ operated by ASA DTW-JFK and I arrived in New York around 5pm. Headed over to Air India where I checked in for the JFK-LHR flight scheduled to leave at 710pm. After I boarded the flight, we pushed back and taxied out, only for our 744 to return to the gate with a mechanical problem. We were required to stay on board due to US security regulations. Thankfully, they served dinner to us Business Class passengers on ground and we finally took off just before 1am, arriving into Heathrow the next day around noon. I headed straight to my hotel and slept like a baby till the next morning!

Longest Nonstop:
KIX-ZRH on Swissair, around 11-12 hrs
BKK-ZRH on Swissair, also around 11 hrs
ZRH-ATL on Swissair, around 10 hrs

HNL-MAJ-KWJ-KSA-PNI-TKK-GUM on the Continental Micronesia "Island Hopper" which took around 14hrs

ZRH-IAD-LAX on UA, total around 15-16 hrs

Mine was as a rev passenger, MAN to KON? (Kona).

Had to leave the house at 4am and arrived in Kona a little after 1am - not too bad until you factor in the 11 hour time difference - 32 hours travel time !!

MAN > LHR > LAX > HNL > KON I will never do this trip in one go again !!!!

The only delay was at HNL because we had to wait for another flight to arrive (2 hours late) before the chartered flight to Kona would leave !!

The worst thing is - its easily possible for a 744 or A340 to make this trip in one go via the polar route !!

RickB

DUS-BRU-ATL-SFO, approximately 24 hours because I missed my conecting flight at ATL.

Patrick

My longest is 33 hours (and I wasn't even a non-rev) when I went last April from Amsterdam to Belem (Brazil) with layovers in Paris, Sao Paulo, Recife and an unscheduled layover of 2 hours in Fortaleza due to a broken plane.

I left AMS at 18.10, arrived in CDG at 19.00. Left CDG at 23.00, arrived in GRU at 05.30. Left GRU at 09.00 arrived in REC at 12.00. Left REC for BEL at 16.30, arrived in Fortaleza at 17.30. Plane broke down thus we needed another plane. Left Fortaleza at 20.00 (should have been 18.00) and arrived in BEL at 22.30. Needless to say I was very tired after this flight.

Regards
Laurens

It was in October '89 . I spent three weeks of holidays in the US being San Diego the last place I visited (with a short hop down the border to Tijuana... viva Mexico cabrones!!), and then it was time to go back home. I drove my rented car to LAX and flew the DL redeye to CVG, and then on to EWR. Spent some time in Manhattan, and went back to EWR in the evening to catch the Air Europa charter flight to MAD. And after two consecutive redeyes I still had 6 hours more before getting home, had to go to Madrid center and catch a bus to my city . Ah the joys of budget travelling...

Other long days flying were in SMF-LAX-NRT-SIN in May'93 and RDU-JFK-MAD-VLC in Sep'00, which included one day stranded in New York due to a motor failure in the IB 747.

My longest non-rev flight was, no doubt, MLA-FCO-FRA-MIA.

I have my share of long flights. These are a few that pop to my mind.

MNL-HKG SRM11 1 1/2 Hours
1 Hour Wait
HKG-ZUR SRM11 14 Hours
5 Hour wait
ZUR-BOS SR743 7 1/2 Hours

Total Close to 29 Hours

******************

MNL-SIN SQ744 03 Hours
6 Hour wait
SIN-AMS SQ744 14 Hours
1 1/2 Hour wait
AMS-JFK SQ 744 08 Hours
5 Hour wait
JFK-BOS TW 727 1 Hour

Total close to 39 Hours

*****************

YYZ-CVG DLM80 1 1/2
1 Hour Wait
CVG-ATL DLM80 2Hours
3 Hour Wait
ATL-SFO DLL10 5 Hours
4 Hour wait
SFO-HKG SQ744 14 Hours
1 Hour wait
HKG-SIN SQ744 3 Hours
3 Hour wait
SIN-MNL SQ313 3 Hours

Total Close to 41 Hours

*****************

MCO-DFW AAM80 2 Hours
6 Hour wait (Suppose to be 3 1/2)
DFW-SFO AA763 3 Hours
30 Minutes of Running
SFO-HKG CX 343 15 Hours 45 minutes
24 Hour Transit
HKG-SIN CX333 3 Hours
4 Hour wait
SIN-BOM QF743 5 Hours

Total close to 60 Hours and 2 days later BOM-KWI KU300 3 1/2 Hours

Mine was about three-four years ago. The entire trip planned was LAX- DFW- MSY- ATL-LAX. Everything was going smoothly at the start, no problems getting on the first two flights. How ever, trying to get out of New Orleans was the problem.

It was a Friday, and apparently everyone decided to fly out at the last minute, and a storm also decided to roll in and start messing things up. So there my dad and I sat for the entire day- from about 9 am getting in- to when we FINALLy made it out about 9:30-10:30 pm to a flight into ATL, where we missed our connection home. So we spent the night at the ATL airport and hopped on the first flight we could get- which ended up being THE very last two seats on a L1011 flight home.

We would've made it home that same day- Firday- had the lady at the ticket counter checked to see a connecting flight in SLC was delayed as well, as we would've ended up on going to SLC, then connecting to a flight to LAX and made it home. From that experience, I ended up DESPISING the New Orleans airport just for the problems we had- nice airport over all, just bad memories.

TPA-MDW drive to ORD-FRA,FRA-AMM

This started out on Southwest TPA to SDF, SDF to MDW. 2 1/2 hours roughly. Then a drive from MDW to ORD where we waited for 7 1/2 hours to pick up a Lufthansa 747 to FRA I think that was 8 or 9 hours. Then we waited for another 9 hours in FRA for a connecting flight, a LH A-321 (I think) that was about a 4 or 5 hour flight, dont quite remember. I was 4 months pregnant and did not sleep all that time (very little on the LH 747 ORD to FRA) I really thought I was going to fall over dead!!!! That was non-reving.
On the way back the flight (LH A-321 again) was AMM to FRA but was weight restricted due to the fact they had to add more fuel to go AROUND the Bosnian war zone so they would not take any non-revs. We ended up buying a tkt on a Royal Jordanian A-310 or 300 (dont remember again) Amman to Vienna, Vienna to FRA. They stuck us infront of the smoking section (again thought I would die) with a bunch of German tourist in the plane that smoked like chimneys. RJ wouldnt let anybody off the plane in Vienna for a good hour or so. Then once in FRA we waited about 2 hours for our LH 747-200 FRA to ORD. Once in ORD we couldnt get onto serveral UA planes bound for TPA and just when we thought we were spending the night in ORD they managed to squeeze us on the LAST flight (727) to TPA. Whew! Lot of work to go see some family!  

Mine was my first trip to Europe in 1984 just after graduating from high school. My father worked for the airlines, so I was flying to Paris. But I couldn't take the nonstop AF flight from LAX as they flew a 747 combi back then it was July and there was an embargo on non revs. So I had to non rev to JFK. AF had only 2 flights per day then, one at 7:00 pm and another at 9:00 pm. Both on 747-200's.. I didn't get on the first flight and waited around for the 2nd one, not knowing what I'd do in NY if I didn't get on, but luckily as they were caling non rev's for the 9;00 pm flight, my name was called, and I got my boarding pass and sat down in their then called "Le Club" business class. I was quite excited.. I remember the movie being shown was "Flashdance". THe return to JFK was again a long journey, I left CDG at 9:00 am and had to wait for about 6 hours till my flight to LAX. We were then on the runway awaiting to fly to LAX for 3 hours due to thunderstorms, but luckily I was in First Class eating my shrimp cocktail ..

My longest trip I payed for. LGA-San Salvador bahamas. close to 24 hours. with a 12 hour layover.

In retrospect, my longest DAY of flying would probably have been one time in 1988 when I was returning home from school in France back to the US. I left Aix en Provence, France in the am and took the bus to Marseille airport. I then flew from Marseille to Paris Orly south on Air Inter, then took a bus from Orly to CDG, where I awaited a British Airways flight from CDG to LHR (on an L-1011). Arrived in LHR in the evening and had to sleep in the airport to await my flight from LHR to LAX the next morning. Finally boarded the 10:00 am flight on British Airways to LA and arrived about 11 hours later. All in all, a good 30 hour journey.

my longest day of flying was PHX-LAX-NRT-SIN. thank god it was first and business class the whole way!

I've had a bunch of very long flights, but my personal best was a 14.4 in the military. As for non-rev nightmares, I've seen too many of those too. Now I just drive if possible. BTW. My parents non-rev all the time and NEVER have a problem. They live right.

Last December: LHR - LAX ( 12 hours ) , a seven hour stop over in LA then flew with Frontier Airlines to Denver - stayed there for two hours - then onto ATL - Another three hour layover in which I met a friend for coffee and had a very quick tour of downtown Atlanta - then onto RDU where my friend and I ( she had been flying back from Sydney ) made it to her place about two days after we first set on the plane.

I think after about a day I began to hallucinate sofas and Disney Characters on the plane, as I babbled incoherently to the American Businessman from Washington attempting to make conversation in the next seat ...

Kauai Hawaii, to the Main Island in Hawaii all the way to Atlanta, up to NYC, over to Rochester, NY, then to Syracuse NY all in 24 hours. Long ass day.

MSP-ORD-SEA-NRT-HKG

I am keeping this in GMT to maintain order

Around 1600 October 10th 2001 I decided that wanted to attend a friends wedding in HKG that was scheduled for the 14th. I had no tickets, a missing passport and no large bank account.
I had a replacement passport that was delayed in SEA, so it was a location added to my trip. I called UAL about the Companion Passes I had. The person who I spoke with was very helpful and allowed me to list one way on all the flights.
At 2000 I arrived at the airport to catch a 2200 flight to ORD. From there, I arrived at SEA around 0500 on the 11th. Sleeping at the terminal, I waited to catch the bus to the passport office. After getting my passport, I boarded a flight to NRT at 1900.
This flight arrive at NRT 0500 on Friday the 12th. 2 hours on the ground and a 5hour flight later, I was in HKG at 1200.

After 20.5 hours flying and 41 hours traveling, I was finally in HKG.
Now it was time to go out for dinner and meeting old friends.

S

Now, I had to do was find a way home.

typical long flight:

leave SFO at 0130
arrive TPE at 0545 (+1 day)
leave TPE at 0800
arrive BKK at 1130 or so

One time I went directly from BKK to Phuket (HKT) and only recall that I finally got tto the hotel my friends were at in Patong Bay (after a 1 hour drive) at somthing likee 1600 local ... that was a long stint.

Steve

About a 38-hour day.

Tokyo-Frankfurt LH 744
Frankfurt-Chicago UA 777
Chicago-Washington UA 733

all on Jan 16, 2002.

With all the time zones, it came out to about 38 hours.