hello all, I was wondering what is the most time you've spent flying and waiting for flights without room or board willingly.

I will be doing some weird flying over the next two days and was wondering if anyone else does this. (for fun)

27 hours... MAN-ATL-PHX.

Long day that was.

My longest was YMML-KLAX-KIAD-LIMC. I had just over 2hrs in LAX and almost 2hrs in Washington.

Total distance by Greater Circle Track was 12,525 Nautical Miles, approximately 27 hours of flying - about 34 hours end to end once you count check-in, customs clearances and about an hour on the ground in Washington de-icing.

Talk about messing with your head - I saw 2 sunsets and 2 sunrises but arrived at my destination less than a full day after I departed based on local time   . There was nothing nicer than the shower at the hotel in Milan too    .

B727-200.

Think this might belong in Av Polls and Prefs  

Some pretty long ones for me, often I just don't trust myself to wake up in time for a flight, so will stay awake all night instead. I also refuse to pay extortionate hotel rates for short stays and what would be very little sleep anyway - I'll quite happily stay overnight in the terminals and really don't mind doing this, as often the earliest flights are the cheapest too!

AMS-CDG-AMS-BRS; 30 hours. Flew the Varig MD11 to CDG, spent the night in the terminal then back to Bristol via AMS. Bloody KLM F100 went tech, so was delayed and missed my flight back to PLH, meaning I didn't get home until about 2am the following morning.

PLH-NQY-LGW-KEF; 30 hours over two days with the night on an uncomfortable bench in LGW.

BHX-BFS-STN-GLA-BHX-AMS-PVG, 50 hours, although I did sleep on the flight to China and had a whole row to myself! When I booked the random day trip around the UK I didn't know that I was going to be going to Shanghai the very next day: I spent the first night in the airport as I had an early flight and public transport would not have gotten me there in time, then flew around the UK on one of my random jaunts, then that night getting ready to go away before leaving home at 4am, and spending the following day and night on the plane. Still wasn't that tired when I arrived either!

PVG-AMS-BHX/BRS-PLH; 40 hours over two days. Got back to my uni digs in Brum just long enough to sort out stuff to get ready for taking back to PLH.

FAE-Torshaven, FAE-CPH-BRU-BHX; 35 hours. After a full day sightseeing and a helicopter flight, flew to CPH where I spent the night on a bench and then early the next morning carried on to Birmingham.

MAH-BCN-MAD-LGW-NQY-PLH, about 24 hours from first to last flight. Spent the night in Barcelona airport - my GOD that marble is cold to try and sleep on!

The longest though for a non stop journey though would definately be this;

MPH-CEB-MNL, MNL-MFM, HKG-LGW. Door to door it was 57 hours, one night spent in a 24 hour 'jollibee' fast food joint in Manila waiting for a bus station to open, then another flying HKG-LGW. I was probably awake for about 60 in total, as I didn't go to bed for a long time after I got back - too many family and friends who wanted to chat... and then work the very next day. Shameless plug of a trip report here 


Dan 

Quoting PlymSpotter (Reply 3): FAE-Torshaven, FAE-CPH-BRU-BHX; 35 hours. After a full day sightseeing and a helicopter flight, flew to CPH where I spent the night on a bench and then early the next morning carried on to Birmingham.

Somewhat off topic, but I've never seen anyone mention it, so I am going to shoot it in: What airline did you use to get to FAE? I've always wanted to go, but have never been able to locate anyway to get there in my moderate attempts at searching.

About 22hours of flying and about 29 hours of traveling. SYD-LAX-MIA. QF744 and AA 777.

For me ARN-FRA-LAX. About 20hrs. (had a long layover in FRA)

Quoting Whappeh (Reply 4): Somewhat off topic, but I've never seen anyone mention it, so I am going to shoot it in: What airline did you use to get to FAE? I've always wanted to go, but have never been able to locate anyway to get there in my moderate attempts at searching.

I flew on Atlantic Airways, which is the only carrier to offer regular flights. I came in from RKV (yes, the 'domestic' terminal!) on the 146-200, which was about £116 one way and continued to CPH with FaroeJet several days later, only between my booking and travelling they went bankrupt and were bought out by Atlantic Airways, so I flew onwards with them as well on the RJ100. As they have the monopoly they are very very expensive, and it gets even more expensive once you get there for accommodation!

Well worth it though, the scenery was spectacular and the people very friendly. Over Christmas I'll try and get a report done on my entire trip, times a little sparse now. Hope this helps,


Dan 

60 something hours

Hong Kong-Singapore-NRT-SFO-DEN-FLL

Part of my round the worl trip in standby. I woke up in hong kong and it was the same day untill i got to Florida. All of it was in ECO and ECO + except for i got lucky on NRT-SFO and got BUS but my dad was still in the back.


-max

Quoting PlymSpotter (Reply 7): Dan

Cheers for the response. I'll look forward to the trip report.  

Longest for me was OSL - FRA - SFO - HNL (about 24 hours) and back HNL - SFO - MUC - OSL. The journey back was just horrible. Plane left HNL 8 in the morning (meaning I had a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call) and arrived at SFO around 2:30 pm local time. I then had to wait until around 9:30 pm for my connecting flight to MUC. Landed in MUC after roughly 10 and a half hours of flying at 5 pm local time in MUC (travelled in Y so could not get any sleep). Was supposed to catch a flight to OSL at around 7 pm, but the flight was delayed with more than three hours, and we finally left MUC at 10:30 pm. Landed in OSL around 1 am. This was too late to catch the train to Lillehammer (where I lived at the time). Had to wait until 7 a.m. next morning for the first train. Train took roughtly 2 hours. From wake-up in Hawaii to finally being able to sleep in Lillehammer (at 1 pm local time!), 44 hours with absolutely no sleep had passed. To this day I have never felt more exhausted than I did then! Of course, the fact that I went to bed at 1 pm and woke up at 10 pm also guaranteed a week full of jet-lag and messed-up sleeping patterns.

34 hours EDI-LHR-SIN-CHC. Arrived CHC mid morning local, couldn't keep the sleep demons away and was comatose by 1pm. Slept solidly for 14 hours and was wide awake at 3am!

Quoting Aaden (Thread starter): willingly.

Willingly? 20 hours. PHX-PHL-GLA (I arrived two days before the attack there), then the train to Edinburgh. I was non-revving so I had to catch the early flight to PHL and had a nice long layover.

My true record is 26 hours. My original routing was PHX-ORD on AA and ORD-MAN on UA. As usual ATC delayed our flight into ORD, and I missed my connection. Managed to get on a flight to LHR on UA (very last seat available on a 777!) and then LHR-MAN on BMI. I had a total of 5 hours layover at LHR, which was a good thing because it took over 1.5 hours to clear customs and security, as usual.

Got to my aunt's house outside of Liverpool, and promptly fell asleep for a solid 13 hours.

for me i left vancouver and drove to seattle at around 8 in the morning, sat at SEA for around 8hours then flew to LAX waited for a few hours, then flew to MEX where we waited for the bus to come, took a 2 hour bus ride to Puebla, waited for an hour then took a 5 hour bus ride to Veracruz. After a few hours of walking to find a hotel, I fell asleep on a pier in the harbour. it was around 34 hours ish

22 hours Capetown to Andrews in the back of a C-5, with a mid-air refueling.

12 hours TLV-EWR with about an hour and a half of travel on either side. Couple that with it being a late night departure (so we were up since the morning) and we were very tired when we got in. Since it was 5 or so AM when we got in, we then had to stay up in order to get our time zones shifted.

34 hours for me! ZRH - VIE - BKK - TPE - SYD with LX (A320) and EVA (A332 and B77W)

...and it was worth it  

Some 36 hours, 24+ of them spent in waiting rooms with not enough chairs for more than a fraction of the people waiting there.

Aeroflot flight over Siberia, ran into technical problems and spent 24 hours waiting for repairs at an airfield without any facilities.
Waiting room for 50 people had 5 chairs, 2 toilets, no food or drink, most people had to sit on a tile floor for the duration. And us foreigners were the lucky ones, we at least had a roof over our heads (the Russians were told to wait outdoors on the sidewalk in front of the terminal).

Just fly C or F class then you have a bed on your flight   And then you reach your destination relaxed 

WILCO737 (MD11F)
  

I think I managed to calculate this once, around 36 hours or so. SYD-SEL-FRA-CPH with a 7 hour layover in the old SEL terminal (the only plus side of that, was I managed to catch an SQ A340-300 while they were still around!) and a few hours in FRA. Left for the airport at 5 pm Sydney time (7 AM CET) and arrived back home around 11 pm CET the next day.

Let's see, including time spent in transit to/from the airport, I have two such instances.

May 17-18, 2007. Left home at about 9:45 AM CDT for MSP. Had to be rebooked from my original flights, so I didn't leave MSP until 1:10 PM. Eventually arrived at CDG 10:15 AM Paris time, but didn't get to the hotel until about 12:30 PM Paris time. The time difference is seven hours, so I was traveling for 19h45m.

June 22, 2007. Left for CDG at 10:00 AM Paris time. All-in-all wound up at home at 11:30 PM CDT, which equates to 6:30 AM Paris time, for 20h30m of travel time. I didn't have any rebookings this time, but head winds and a long PHL layover made this journey a bit longer. It was one flight less, too.

My longest would be LAX-LHR-JNB which included 2 nights in the air sitting upright in Y so that counts, right?

Flew LAX-LHR on BA, then had several hours at LHR before flying on to JNB with SA. Total time from hotel (Yorba Linda) to home was about 36 hours.

In October 2006 I flew SMF-IAH-EWR-HAM. To make things even harder it was a red eye flight to IAH (but not long enough to get that much sleep), then a morning flight to EWR, then a 5 hour layover at EWR, then another red eye flight to HAM. It was pretty close to 24 hours of travel time, with 2 nights sitting in Y seats.

Probably going to be my MR coming up in two weeks. First flight departs at 0700 Sat morning and I get back at 2230 the following day. Routing HIB-MSP-DTW-FRA-AMS-MSP-HIB. 39 1/2 hours total.

Before that it would have been a couple years ago. I was going on one of my Ireland trips and got a routing through JFK and AMS with an 8 hour layover at each. First time "visiting" NYC. Had enough time to go see a few things then head back to the airport. The worst part was that when I got to DUB, I still had to get my car and drive two hours to get to her house. I've since flown the most direct to DUB  

PIT-SEA-ANC-PHX-DEN-PIT, 25 hours.

Left my apartment around 2pm. Airport 3pm flight delayed till about 6pm. Got to SEA there 10 minutes connecting. Was in ANC for about 2 hours. Was in PHX about 1 hour 30 mins. In DEN was delayed about 2 hours more than was supposed to. Home in PIT airport just after 7pm. So for me 25 hours of airports/planes. Was my last non-rev flight just for fun.

BUR-LAS-DCA-PHL-ABE-PIT, 24 hours.
Non-reving home.

39 hours in 2006 from WLG-DTW, and 2007 was 43 hours of flying with no bed. In 2006, I arrived in DTW at 10am and couldn't stay awake at 2pm, and sleeped till 8am. Never felt so refreshed for as long as I can remember

Heading for the record? 56 Hours. VIE-FRA-HKG-BNE. By the time my head hit the pillow in a REAL bed, it was close to 56 hours. How so?

VIE-FRA: flight left at 7am CET on THU. Got up at 0430 CET to get to airport on time.
FRA-HKG: flight departed 14.00 CET (or thereabouts). Arrival in HKG 0700 local time FRI.
Departure HKG for BNE is ca. 23.50. So a solid 16 hours in HKG for shopping, meeting suppliers etc.
Since the flight went via CNS, did not arrive into BNE until 1230 AET on SAT. I was determined to get my sleep patterns right, I staid up till 2130 on SAT. On a nine-hour time difference, that comes back to 1230 CET.
And I used to do that twice per year for three years.

THen I moved to Moscow and started flying OS (northern winter).
SVO-VIE dep 0550 (meant I had to get up 3.30am! on a Fri.
VIE-SYD (via KUL on OS) dep 1100, arrival at 17.50 (or thereabouts on Sat
SYD-BNE dep 1930 or so, arrival into BNE at 20.00 (still on Sat).
So allow for the customary two hours or so from touch-down till head hits pillow, it took all of 36 hours to hit the pillow.

I now travel BNE-SVO via HKG on CX/SU, so the trip times have come down. Esp when I choose the SU daytime departure out of HKG for SVO. Allows me to arrive the evening before from BNE, head to Novotel Citygate for a feed/sleep in a real bed. THen back in the morning to the airport, all while my luggage is checked through. Very gentlemanly way to travel indeed.

NG1Fan

April '06: MSY-ORD-DUB-LHR-ORD-MSY...total travel time was 33 hours, all in Y, no stopovers longer than three hours in any city...9,579 miles (8,324 nm)

A close second would be MSY-IAH-LGW-IAH-BTR in June '06....32 hours travel time, all in Y, no stopovers longer than two and a half hours...this one was actually longer in mileage than the previous trip, but it took slightly less time to complete....10,265 miles (8,920 nm)

30 Hours on a mileage run LOL.....I know it was crazy !!!

Two years ago I was working at night and worked 2200 till 0600 (was awake since 1500), then got home to take my backpack and catch a train to DUS around 0900, waited for my flight till 1500, flew DUS-DXB with EK, had a 4 hours layover in DXB then boarded for DXB-BKK, went through immigration and waited 2 hours for my flight to KUL, took a train to the city and finally a taxi for the hotel... Guess what ? I slept like a baby !

Question: Does overnighting on a Suite in the A380 count?

For me, it was LAX-CDG-JNB. It was a double red-eye, about 11,000 miles.

Soon, I will fly LAX-SYD-SIN, about 14,000 miles.

35 hours on CO/WN
GVA-EWR-CLE-BNA-LAS-PHX
Surprisingly, this cost less then flying GVA-EWR-PHX. New time i'll pay more to fly less.

PHXmd80

Minneapolis-St Paul Intl to San Fran to Tokyo-Narita to Osaka; June, 1987. B742 and B752 (NW Orient)

I was 14 at the time. By the time I got to Narita (gawking at all the 747's and DC-10's at the terminal) I was in jet-lag la-la land. By Osaka, I could barely remember my own name!

Oh, Brother, now you got me thinking--and figuring!

My longest flight was on October 1-4, 2007 from MNL-BKK! What made it rather long was that I was going to be on Contiental's inaugural flight from EWR-BOM--both ways!

Route of flight was:
MNL-NRT
NRT-EWR
EWR-BOM
BOM-EWR
EWR-HKG
HKG-BKK

33,343 Miles
61 flight hours (Approximately)
88 hours Approximate total time from start to finish

I was able to have Business Class on some of the legs, and was able to shower both times through EWR, but the only stops were while waiting for my connecting flight

[Edited 2008-01-10 17:19:50]

My longest trip in a single stretch was ANR - LGW - EWR - ORD - DFW. The result of last-minute change, full planes (just before Christmas) and inflexible corporate travel policies (since modified, thank god).

My longest overall...

Day 1 late morning: LAX - LAS
Work work work - had a room in LAS, no time to use the bed though
Day 1 red eye (technically after midnight): LAS - IAH
Work work work
Day 2 early evening: IAH - LGW - BRU
Work Work Work
Day 3 early evening: BRU - LHR - HKG
Sleep sleep sleep

Total: 60 some hours. I did sleep some on the overnight flights, but I still hit the pillow the second I got to my room in Hong Kong.

To be fair, day 1 wasn't planned, I was replacing a sick colleague at the last minute and I had to rush things in Sin City to get it done in time to go to IAH. Had things gone according to plans, I would have skipped LAS and arrived in IAH the early evening of day 1 and spent the night in a nice hotel bed.

All in all, it wasn't too bad, my boss upgraded me from C to F on the LHR - HKG leg and scheduled an extra day of phantom meetings in HKG so I had a full day with nothing to do before heading home, and I ended up going round-the-world (happened a few times, but never so hectic)

Nevertheless, thank god for showers in the BA and CX lounges at LGW and LHR respectively.

My longest self-inflicted trip was 47 hours (air and ground): SYD-JNB-DKR-JFK-SFO. During the last sector I could not sit anymore and literally went into praying mode for the flight to end. Anybody knowing me and my passion for flying will be able to attest that I was pretty desperate at that stage to get off.  

MCO-ATL-ICN about 21 hours travel time.

Also IAD-SFO-SYD-ADL over 24 hrs.

I prefer to take a break at a hotel mid trip on really long trips.

KWI-DOH-FRA hotel FRA-CVG-SLC much better.

AS/AA PDX-LAX-BOS-CDG, crazy schedule not by choice but due to free FF ticket during peak season so you gets whats you pays for...


Around 27 air travel-related hours, and I can't fall asleep at airports or on planes. Around 40 hours total without sleep which combined with jet-lag and getting over a serious sinus infection was a rough time. Thank God for antibiotics and espresso.

Times not exact (it was almost two years ago):

Dep PDX: 8:40PM
Arrive LAX: 11:30PM

*8 hour layover LAX*

Dep LAX: 7:30AM
Arrive BOS: 2:30PM(?)

Dep BOS: 4:30PM
Arrive CDG: 8:00AM(?)

On top of that, my parents, who flew LH, missed their connection in FRA so I had to wait three hours at CDG for their flight to arrive. We then took the TGV to Bordeaux (3hrs?), got a rental car, and drove another hour and a half to the cottage near Perigeux. Like I said above, 40+ hours without sleep. After all that, I never fell asleep so fast in my entire life. Head hit the pillow and I was DONE! The return trip had an even bigger layover at JFK so I got a hotel room near the airport and a full night's sleep beforing returing to PDX via SFO.

[Edited 2008-01-12 21:32:37]

[Edited 2008-01-12 21:33:29]