US Airways to Oz

One thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is to see what I can do to get to London next. On this day I was poking around the US Airways website looking to see what they were offering for this coming November. I have no money to go right now but that is a secondary issue. I have always wanted to be in London for Thanksgiving and pretended to make reservations for Monday, the 22^nd to Monday the 29^th. US Airways as well as most others are coming in between $500 and $600 for an economy round-trip flight. As you cannot get a direct flight from Pittsburgh anymore at least one stop is required. Airlines usually give you a number of flights out and back to choose from but one outgoing flight caught my eye.

They actually recommended a flight to hell. First let me set the stage as to what should be expected. A flight from Pittsburgh to Charlotte or Philadelphia is short. The flight to London takes off that evening and eight hours latter you are in Piccadilly. A combination of flights for 22 November exceeded two days. Here is how it was scheduled.

Flight	Trip	Times	Duration
96	Pittsburgh to Philly	8:45pm – 9:56pm	1 h 11 m
	Same Day Layover		0 h 54 m
1290	Philly to LaGuardia	10:50pm – 11:40pm	0 h 50 m
	Overnight Layover		7 h 20 m
2116	LaGuardia to Boston	7:00am – 8:05am	1 h 05 m
	Same Day Layover		1 h 25 m
61	Boston to Charlotte	9:30am – 11:58am	2 h 28 m
	Same Day Layover		6 h 22 m
732	Charlotte to Gatwick	6:20pm – 7:20am	8 h 00 m
			29 h 35 m

Total transit time: 2 days, 5 hours, 35 minutes.

7:20 am in London would be 2:20 am on the east coast.

Good-God. Four layovers and one of which is overnight for over 7 hours. You actually leave Pittsburgh on Monday but don’t leave Charlotte until Tuesday and when you land in London is it on a Wednesday morning. You would think that with all of this free time one of the planes would fly past Oz and pick up Dorothy and her little dog, too.

The flight to London is only scheduled for 8 hours but the total flight time is 13 hours and 34 minutes. All this for only one easy payment of $275. The flight back to Charlotte and Pittsburgh is only $276. (Only one dollar more?) And let us not loose focus on that 7-hour layover in Boston. What does one do at that time of the night? One question that will never get an answer to is how do they know they know when they are losing money? When? Any day they operate a flight! I know that the above schedule was computer generated. I am just glad they still have pilots on board and not computer driven craft. As I have always said (if you ever listen to me) is that just because they can get you there does not mean you should take the flight. Fifty-four minute layover in Philly to get to New York; I would rather take my chances in Vegas.