Are Indirect Flights Really A Deal Breaker?

So I have the dreaded conversation with my Northern English and Scottish customers more and more these days about flying from their local airport indirectly!

You can almost hear the disappointment in peoples voices when they hear the word ‘indirect’. As though someone has just pulled all the glee from their body, and suddenly made their holiday more of a chore than a pleasure.

Manchester Airport tends to be the most widely used airport next to Heathrow I find, and it’s become on occasion a deal breaker for my customers that they must change en-route when flying scheduled from here. Similar with Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The reason being is namely the size of the runaways, number of terminals, and passenger capability. Of course, Heathrow tops the charts on all these fronts, with Manchester in second. But I’d have thoughts perhaps more airlines would be bringing more services to Manchester in an effort to boost tourism in their countries.

Tokyo, Miami, Rio etc, all major cities, all with major cruise ports, no direct scheduled carriers to any from Manchester.

There is no doubt places like Singapore, Dubai & Hong Kong have benefited with direct services. Especially Dubai and Emirates Airlines, with direct flights from various UK airports.

But is it a deal breaker when you as a customer come up against this problem?

In recent years I have flown to the likes of Shanghai and The Maldives from Manchester, needing to fly via Heathrow and Abu Dhabi respectively in order to get to these places, with a couple of hours in each, and I asked myself ‘was this a deterrent?’

Simple answer is ‘No’.

Granted it’s not ideal, and ultimately all you do is spend money on food and drink. But in the case of the stop in Abu Dhabi, I was more than glad to get off the plane for a few hours to stretch my legs, grab a beer, and mentally prep myself for the next leg.

I’d go as far to say I actually preferred having a stop, knowing that a flight to the Maldives direct would take roughly 11-12 hours direct. No thanks!

Of course, some will argue that the seat class you go for makes a difference. Sadly I am not in a financial position to be looking at business class or similar, nor are a large number of the population, so until such time as this becomes possible for me, I’ll have to stick with economy!

My age and physical build is also something I suppose takes consideration. At 33 I am more than capable of sitting still for several hours, and consider myself a whiz with the in-seat entertainment systems. I’m also 5’11 without shoes on, and although I am more legs than body, I can find comfortable positions on aircrafts to get some shut eye. I am aware than in my industry, the majority of my guests are 60 plus, which can brings the usual aches and pains when sat still for prolonged amounts of time. Some guests are much taller, some perhaps taller in a width sense of the word….. so comfort maybe less straight forward to acheive. For me, all the more reason to take the indirect flight as a blessing in disguise.

Look these are just my opinions, ultimately I sell holidays, so I’d be interested to know what my readers and customers think.

Are indirect flights a deterrent for you?

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your answers.

As always, until next time……………