They fly there??

zrs70 · Thu May 03, 2018 3:52 am

What are some of the current and past destinations airlines have served that are off typical radar?

I believe that JAT (Yugoslav Airlines) used to fly to Clevand.

UA’s Elko, Nevada I always found interesting.

New York Air’s DC’s BOS-ACK in the 80’s was an odd one as well.

Airstud · Thu May 03, 2018 7:18 am

What's odd about BOS-ACK?

zrs70 · Thu May 03, 2018 9:01 am

Airstud wrote:
What's odd about BOS-ACK?

A DC9 in 1989 was not a common arrival for ACK.

TheEuphorian · Thu May 03, 2018 9:37 am

Well here are a few:
TG serving JFK
VARIG serving HKG via JNB and BKK
CA serving FNJ

trijetsonly · Thu May 03, 2018 11:35 am

The Air Koryo flight to Berlin and Zurich until the late 2000s

Lufthansa to Australia, St. Maarten and the Seychelles

PatrickZ80 · Thu May 03, 2018 2:40 pm

Asiana has announced flights to Venice which is only a regional airport. Of course a very touristic destination, but a relatively small airport for a flight halfway across the globe. You'd think they'd funnel their passengers through some major hub in Europe, but they don't.

ryan78 · Thu May 03, 2018 9:16 pm

I've always thought the TAAG Angola flight from Luanda to Havana was a really odd one but after further research there are many ties to both countries. I saw it once on FR24 and almost couldn't believe my eyes, it's such a bizarre flight.

Cush · Thu May 03, 2018 9:40 pm

zrs70 wrote:
What are some of the current and past destinations airlines have served that are off typical radar?

I believe that JAT (Yugoslav Airlines) used to fly to Clevand.

Yes, JAT flew to Cleveland, and they also flew to Pittsburgh (PIT). The routing was PIT-Zagreb-Belgrade, and another day it was PIT-Detroit-Zagreb-Belgrade. The return flight was Belgrade-Zagreb-Pittsburgh only. Service was on the DC-10. Packages were arranged and setup with Generalturist.

BritTraveller · Thu May 03, 2018 11:23 pm

The VARIG flight to CPH

FlyRow · Fri May 04, 2018 12:28 am

All VLM flights from Maribor... why the **** do they fly from there.... it's not Vlaanderen (flanders) from te V-lm and is also a really weird destinations for any flight...

FlyHappy · Fri May 04, 2018 1:02 am

TheEuphorian wrote:
Well here are a few:
TG serving JFK

Nothing weird about TG into NYC, they'd do it again tomorrow, if there weren't 100 other options thru every continent save South America!

TheEuphorian wrote:
CA serving FNJ

just proves that everyone loves Canadians.

trijetsonly wrote:
The Air Koryo flight to Berlin and Zurich until the late 2000s

you win. shut down this thread, OMG.

TheFlyingDisk · Fri May 04, 2018 3:43 am

MH's MEX & EZE services were rather peculiar since there was not that much ties between Malaysia & Mexico/Argentina. Apparently MH's LAX-MEX flights were often full that some US airlines protested, causing the DOT to rescind MH's 5th freedom rights on LAX-MEX.

One can also say the same for D7's KUL-KIX-HNL service. Why would a Malaysian want to go to Honolulu when there are plenty of beaches far closer to home?

Gemuser · Fri May 04, 2018 8:07 am

trijetsonly wrote:
The Air Koryo flight to Berlin and Zurich until the late 2000s

Lufthansa to Australia, St. Maarten and the Seychelles

What's unusual about LH serving Australia? Most major European airlines served Australia from the 1950s to the 80s/90, KL from the 1930! In fact I would say that BA still serving Australia is the odd one out.
I expect that when Project Sunrise flights ramp up that unless there is some sort of JV or code share arrangement with QF IMHO BAs flights to Australia will not last long.

Gemuser

ZK-NBT · Fri May 04, 2018 8:48 am

NZ served DFW OCT 87 March 89 AKL-PPT-DFW-LGW-LAX-AKL 742. I think it went to FRA aswell and HNL. 1-2 weekly I think from memory?

They flew to FRA OCT 87 March 01 via several stops AKL-NAN/HNL-LAX -FRA 742/744 upto 3 weekly.

angusjt · Fri May 04, 2018 10:08 am

Qantas used to serve Damascus and Belgrade, back in the 70s & 80s when the climate was different obviously.

21pilots · Fri May 04, 2018 2:07 pm

KLM to Fortaleza -although it just started - doesn't look like a route that will be around for a very long time

FlyRow · Fri May 04, 2018 6:33 pm

^^
Good connections with GOL, won't be that bad.
On it's own it would never have happened, now GOL has a base there offering connections.

SRQKEF · Sat May 05, 2018 2:43 pm

While FI also has its fair share of smaller N-American destinations, two routes that have always fascinated me are DE from FRA to Fairbanks and especially Whitehorse.

SCQ83 · Sat May 05, 2018 7:42 pm

An interesting one is Spain - Americas outside MAD/BCN:

I can think of:

SCQ-EZE with Aerolíneas in 2004 for a few years viewtopic.php?t=237825
SCQ-CCS flights at some point also this century.

ALC-BOG with Avianca between 2006 and 2008 http://www.diarioinformacion.com/alican ... 59980.html

TFN-CCS has been flown with different carriers. Plus Ultra should restart it from July 1 http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/canar ... norte.html

TFN-MIA with Air Europa in 2009 for a few years. Trip report viewtopic.php?t=967819

dfwjim1 · Sun May 06, 2018 12:23 am

I am going to go with Shreveport, La to Las Vegas on G4. Seems odd to have a flight between two gambling destinations but this flight has been running for years so it must be doing well.

alggag · Sun May 06, 2018 12:51 am

SA's service to IAH back in the early 1980s always seemed odd to me.

BAINY3 · Sun May 06, 2018 1:11 am

EVA's entire BKK operation (except TPE) always confounds me. Why aren't they just Thai codeshares? Some of them are weirdly exclusive to EVA and not even operated by Thai.

SRQKEF · Sun May 06, 2018 1:36 pm

BAINY3 wrote:
EVA's entire BKK operation (except TPE) always confounds me. Why aren't they just Thai codeshares? Some of them are weirdly exclusive to EVA and not even operated by Thai.

Isn’t it because of the lack of Chinese overflight rights?

BAINY3 · Sun May 06, 2018 5:48 pm

SRQKEF wrote:
BAINY3 wrote:
EVA's entire BKK operation (except TPE) always confounds me. Why aren't they just Thai codeshares? Some of them are weirdly exclusive to EVA and not even operated by Thai.

Isn’t it because of the lack of Chinese overflight rights?

Well, VIE-TPE and CDG-TPE overfly China, and EVA serves a bunch of PRC destinations directly. However, they avoid flying over Tibet (as is the case with pretty much every airline, regardless of the political situation), instead flying south of the Himalayas, but these flights still wind up flying over southern China near Guangzhou, etc.

EVA's European destinations regarding BKK are strange as well. LHR and AMS are only served from BKK, while CDG is only served from TPE, and VIE has service to both. Not sure why that is.

DarkSnowyNight · Sun May 06, 2018 11:51 pm

Air Springfield.

Springfield intl - CDG. Early 90s, IIRC.

lugie · Mon May 07, 2018 6:27 pm

SCQ83 wrote:
An interesting one is Spain - Americas outside MAD/BCN:

I can think of:

SCQ-EZE with Aerolíneas in 2004 for a few years viewtopic.php?t=237825
SCQ-CCS flights at some point also this century.

ALC-BOG with Avianca between 2006 and 2008 http://www.diarioinformacion.com/alican ... 59980.html

TFN-CCS has been flown with different carriers. Plus Ultra should restart it from July 1 http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/canar ... norte.html

TFN-MIA with Air Europa in 2009 for a few years. Trip report viewtopic.php?t=967819

While not Spain but still an iberian country, the one that I always found interesting was TP's (LIS-)FNC-CCS.

It was ceased when the economic situation in Venezuela worsened but before that, there was apparently a significant community of Portuguese-, and more precisely Madeiran-descended community in Venezuela that made this routing viable. (I read somewhere that there were around twice as many Venezuelans of Madeiran descent than inhabitants on the island of Madeira).

S4 (Sata Internacional)'s Oakland flights also never ceases to surprise me. While I understand their Azores to east coast flights which make a lot of sense geographically and culturally (due to the Portuguese diaspora around Boston and in RI), this longhaul to the west coast seems kind of odd.

NickolayAv · Mon May 07, 2018 7:17 pm

TACV flying from Cape Verde to Boston and until recently Providence.

LH748 · Tue May 08, 2018 1:47 pm

One route that I found pretty cool but also bizarre was Lauda Air's VIE-KUL-MEL
It were one of the last European airlines to still serve Australia and I only learned about it when my high school exchange buddy came with this flight.

Another odd (and completely political) route was the DAM-CCS service of Iran Air with their 747SP. It barely gets more exotic than that.

Air Koryo also used to fly to SOF by the way.

passengerpigeon · Tue May 08, 2018 5:47 pm

LCY-JMK/PMI/JTR/JSI/FAO/MAH/CMF/SIR. Flying non-time-pressed vacationers on these leisure routes, most of which are long enough to reduce the time saving advantage of LCY, just seems to me like a complete waste of the airport's potential. Also, UIP and EGC, while much closer, are cities that I've never even heard of until I researched this topic; where does the demand come from and why do these flights need to use LCY? Does anybody know why there are so many leisure routes? I thought the whole purpose of LCY was to provide a time-saving "air train" service to other major European cities and for domestic/UK flights, using other close-in airports where possible, yet although this has been done to some extent there is no service to CIA, LIN or MAD (or possibly LECU).

BENAir01 · Wed May 09, 2018 8:39 pm

I think ULN-TXL (via SVO) on a 737 is pretty odd, and IIRC, they serve FRA nonstop as well.

Pe@rson · Wed May 09, 2018 8:55 pm

passengerpigeon wrote:
LCY-JMK/PMI/JTR/JSI/FAO/MAH/CMF/SIR. Flying non-time-pressed vacationers on these leisure routes, most of which are long enough to reduce the time saving advantage of LCY, just seems to me like a complete waste of the airport's potential. Also, UIP and EGC, while much closer, are cities that I've never even heard of until I researched this topic; where does the demand come from and why do these flights need to use LCY? Does anybody know why there are so many leisure routes? I thought the whole purpose of LCY was to provide a time-saving "air train" service to other major European cities and for domestic/UK flights, using other close-in airports where possible, yet although this has been done to some extent there is no service to CIA, LIN or MAD (or possibly LECU).

Because outside of peak periods, LCY is very quiet. LCY's landing fees at such times are a fraction of what they are at peak times. Most of the leisure routes operate outside of peak times.

BACF seeks to increase the utilisation of its aircraft, and these leisure routes - which are often pretty strong yield-wise and mainly summer-seasonal - make a lot of sense, which is why they still exist. LCY-JSI-LCY in August, for example, is over £500.

In terms of France, lots of British people have second homes in France and also visit rural France on holiday.

There are 10x daily on weekdays LCY-LIN.

LCY-MAD operated but ended.

Kent350787 · Thu May 10, 2018 3:28 am

LH748 wrote:
One route that I found pretty cool but also bizarre was Lauda Air's VIE-KUL-MEL

They also served SYD, and had 772s named Sydney and Melbourne. It was always difficult to see a great logic for the flight (there is no particularly strong cultural link) but it did continue for a short while following the OS takeover.

I agree with Gemuser that BA remains the outlier as the only European airline flying to Australia. Apart form BA and its predecessors, KL, AZ, LH, OS, Lauda, UTA and JAT have served Australia. The French were generally flights onward to the South Pacific colonies.

SkyVoice · Fri May 11, 2018 2:32 am

This is not exactly the same thing, but it is similar. When I worked for Comair at Cincinnati back in the late 90s, OH flew to two different airports identified as Tri-Cities, MBS and TRI. When I was a Gate Agent in Concourse C and I had to make a boarding announcement for a flight to either one of those airports, I made sure that I accurately announced which Tri-Cities airport's flight was boarding. I would announce for ". . . service to the Michigan Tri-Cities of Midland, Bay City and Saginaw," or ". . . service to the Tennessee Cities of Bristol, Kingsport and Johnson City." And, I never had one of my Tri-Cities passengers board the wrong flight!

TWA772LR · Sat May 12, 2018 8:24 am

MEM-MFE on NW seemed odd to me. And i swear there was GPT/MSY-JAX (spmething like that involving the Florida panhandle and Gulf Coast) on Continental Express/Connection in the mod-2000s.

angusjt · Sat May 12, 2018 10:38 am

I recall EK used to do a 77W flight routed DXB-BKK-SYD-CHC up until a year and a half ago .

BoeingGuy · Sat May 12, 2018 2:18 pm

SkyVoice wrote:
This is not exactly the same thing, but it is similar. When I worked for Comair at Cincinnati back in the late 90s, OH flew to two different airports identified as Tri-Cities, MBS and TRI. When I was a Gate Agent in Concourse C and I had to make a boarding announcement for a flight to either one of those airports, I made sure that I accurately announced which Tri-Cities airport's flight was boarding. I would announce for ". . . service to the Michigan Tri-Cities of Midland, Bay City and Saginaw," or ". . . service to the Tennessee Cities of Bristol, Kingsport and Johnson City." And, I never had one of my Tri-Cities passengers board the wrong flight!

Too bad they didn’t also serve PSC from there. That is also commonly known as the Tri-Cities.

Interesting thread. I’ve often thought the exact same exercise would be interesting with railroads. What state did a given railroad serve that you might not have expected?

Great Northern - California
New York Central -West Virginia

Etc.

SkyVoice · Sun May 13, 2018 2:34 am

BoeingGuy wrote:
Too bad they didn’t also serve PSC from there. That is also commonly known as the Tri-Cities. .

Yes, and with the Yakima, Snake and Columbia Rivers flowing there, one could also say that PSC serves the Three Rivers area. Thank you for your contribution!

devron · Sun May 13, 2018 2:54 pm

trijetsonly wrote:
The Air Koryo flight to Berlin and Zurich until the late 2000s

Lufthansa to Australia, St. Maarten and the Seychelles

I can see Seychelles coming back with Eurowings, Swiss, or their own Jump concept. Condor still has direct flights from Frankfurt (just to demonstrate ther is still a market).

vfw614 · Mon May 14, 2018 8:29 am

A route here in my area that I always found surprising is DUS-NTE. It has been around now for more than 25 years and was started by Régional Airlines on Jetstream 31s. Nowadays, it sometimes has CRKs scheduled. Quite surprising given the relative lack of services from French regional airports to German destinations (NTE not served from FRA or MUC). Another odd one has always been DUS-NCL which has been around just as long and goes back to the glory days of Gill Aviation/Air (same as for NTE - NCL not served from FRA or MUC).

LCY-JMK/PMI/JTR/JSI/FAO/MAH/CMF/SIR. Flying non-time-pressed vacationers on these leisure routes, most of which are long enough to reduce the time saving advantage of LCY, just seems to me like a complete waste of the airport's potential. Also, UIP and EGC, while much closer, are cities that I've never even heard of until I researched this topic; where does the demand come from and why do these flights need to use LCY? Does anybody know why there are so many leisure routes? I thought the whole purpose of LCY was to provide a time-saving "air train" service to other major European cities and for domestic/UK flights, using other close-in airports where possible, yet although this has been done to some extent there is no service to CIA, LIN or MAD (or possibly LECU).

The main target group of LCY being business travellers also means that there is relatively little demand around noon and from Friday to Sunday. So it makes sense to add flights to destinations targeting a crowd at the upper end of the market who are happy to pay a little more than on Ryanair or easyJet. Think the second homes / five star hotel type of travellers. I doubt that you will see groups of lager louts checking in for those flights at LCY.

BENAir01 · Mon May 14, 2018 8:45 pm

TK flies IST-FRU-ULN on a 737

zakuivcustom · Mon May 14, 2018 9:50 pm

NickolayAv wrote:
TACV flying from Cape Verde to Boston and until recently Providence.

While it may seems funky to an outsider, there's a fairly big Cape Verdean community near Boston (New Bedford/Brockton/Boston each has 11k Cape Verdean each) and RI (53k in Mass., 19k in RI).

BAINY3 wrote:
SRQKEF wrote:
BAINY3 wrote:
EVA's entire BKK operation (except TPE) always confounds me. Why aren't they just Thai codeshares? Some of them are weirdly exclusive to EVA and not even operated by Thai.

Isn’t it because of the lack of Chinese overflight rights?

Well, VIE-TPE and CDG-TPE overfly China, and EVA serves a bunch of PRC destinations directly. However, they avoid flying over Tibet (as is the case with pretty much every airline, regardless of the political situation), instead flying south of the Himalayas, but these flights still wind up flying over southern China near Guangzhou, etc.

EVA's European destinations regarding BKK are strange as well. LHR and AMS are only served from BKK, while CDG is only served from TPE, and VIE has service to both. Not sure why that is.

BR/CI ability to fly over PRC is a fairly recent phenomenon (Ok, since about 2010 or so, but still relatively recent). Both BR/CI use to run most of their European routes TPE-BKK-xxx. Even now BR/CI takes detour sometimes to avoid Chinese airspace.

My personal favorite is the former HY (Uzbekistan Airways) TAS-RIX-JFK, before they switched to non-stop fairly recently. The other two that somewhat stands out to me are AA's MIA-CNF (Ending soon, though) and MIA-BSB.

NickolayAv · Mon May 14, 2018 11:43 pm

zakuivcustom wrote:
NickolayAv wrote:
TACV flying from Cape Verde to Boston and until recently Providence.

While it may seems funky to an outsider, there's a fairly big Cape Verdean community near Boston (New Bedford/Brockton/Boston each has 11k Cape Verdean each) and RI (53k in Mass., 19k in RI).

For us Bostonians, it is not unusual, but many who don't live here would be surprised to learn of it.
https://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com ... rovidence/

zakuivcustom · Tue May 15, 2018 1:05 am

NickolayAv wrote:
zakuivcustom wrote:
NickolayAv wrote:
TACV flying from Cape Verde to Boston and until recently Providence.

While it may seems funky to an outsider, there's a fairly big Cape Verdean community near Boston (New Bedford/Brockton/Boston each has 11k Cape Verdean each) and RI (53k in Mass., 19k in RI).

For us Bostonians, it is not unusual, but many who don't live here would be surprised to learn of it.
https://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com ... rovidence/

To be fair, yes, while people that did research (or live around Boston) would realized why TACV fly that route, outsiders would find it funky.

Same thing can be said for Azores Airlines flight from BOS to PDL (6w) and TER (1w), which is the same story as the TACV flight (i.e. large diaspora from the Azores around Boston). More interesting to me is that the flight is shorter than BOS-LAX :white:

hoons90 · Tue May 15, 2018 2:12 am

Always wondered why Air Astana flies to Amsterdam from Atyrau and not Almaty or Astana.
Uzbekistan Airways' Urgench-Paris route is also a route I find interesting.

For past routes, I always found Aeroflot's Khabarovsk-Anchorage-San Francisco flight fascinating. I think some other Russian airline also flew Magadan-Anchorage-Seattle.

SCQ83 · Tue May 15, 2018 5:57 am

zakuivcustom wrote:
The other two that somewhat stands out to me are AA's MIA-CNF (Ending soon, though) and MIA-BSB.

I don't see how MIA-CNF or MIA-BSB are weird routes, even for someone with no interest or knowledge in aviation. Anyone in South Florida can see loads of Brazilian tourists all the time and know that Florida is a favourite for Brazilians. Having flights from Miami to major Brazilian cities (including the capital) seems like the most logical thing.

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