I've been looking at air tickets to India for the last couple of days. Led to a few interesting discoveries. General consensus is that from the West Coast of the US, it is best to travel westward for a couple of reasons
1. Its cheaper coz you travel via one of the many south east asian airlines like malaysian, singapore, korean, thai etc instead of the more reputed european carriers.
2. Its significantly shorter to fly over the pacific. This might partly be due to the way a world map is laid out.
Now while the former is true, the latter infact isn't. The shortest trip travelling west consists of an insanely long first leg - just over 17hrs (LA to anyone of KL, bangkok or singapore) followed by a relatively short flight of 3 1/2 hours, which adds up to just under 21 hrs of flying time. But interestingly through Europe, the trans-atlantic leg (LA to Frankfurt) takes around 11 hrs followed by an 8 1/2 journey to Madras. That amounts to under 20 hrs. Ofcourse you can dock another 4 and 6 hrs from that time if you're travelling from Chicago and New York respectively. And infact, there are now direct flights to India from these two cities.
This ofcourse leads to another question - which would you prefer? Long flights with minimal stops or a trip with shorter flights but more stops. Personally I think I may prefer the former. But I have my limits. Last winter, I had this 17 1/2 hr non-stop flight from DC to Addis Ababa. When you are in a flight for that long you start to get the feeling that you are never going to get out. Sleep, food, fellow passengers and in-flight entertainment can only take you so far!
To go east or west - that is the question!!
1 comment:
I would anyday prefer shorter flights! There's nothing more bugging than having to sit stiff in your seat for as long as 17-18 hours..simple insane! but then its a completely personal preference! someone out there might've done an elaborate study on how human body reacts to such travels but it aisn't me! :)
and then you'd be really lucky to get a very short break if you are going west! these south east asians simply don't have the frequency and connections to match the european ones I hear!
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