Whatis a technical stop?

[bardos]

I am flying from Madrid to San Francisco on the 19th of November. My itinerary shows a "technical stop" in New York. Can anyone tell me what this means? Deplaning? Customs? The flight duration is listed as about 17 hours.

[Dave Clarke Fife]

A 'tech' stop is usually associated with a requirement to refuel the aircraft due to the destination being too far away to do it in one go. Flights on the B757 to the Caribbean from the UK (many years ago) used to tech stop at Bangor, Maine (and vice versa). We were allowed off the aircraft to stretch our legs and no customs were involved as far as I remember. Do you know what aircraft type you are going on because if it's a 747 then that will blow this little theory rightout of the water

[bardos]

My ticket schedule says it's a 767.

[PaperTiger]

If this is a scheduled flight, it looks like someone is being a bit liberal with the definition of a technical stop. I only see one 'through' flight via JFK and it's one of those abominable two flights with the same number nonsense thingies the US airlines love :* .
From: Madrid (MAD)
To: San Francisco (SFO)
Departure Date: 19NOV10
Distance: 6166
Leg 1 of 2
Flight Delta 127
Depart Madrid (MAD) Terminal 1
Departure Time 11:00am
Arrive New York JFK (JFK) Terminal 3
Arrival Time 1:35pm
Duration 8h35m
Meal L
Aircraft Type 767
Operated By DL
Leg 2 of 2
Flight Delta 127
Depart New York JFK (JFK) Terminal 2
Departure Time 3:15pm
Arrive San Francisco (SFO) Terminal 1
Arrival Time 6:52pm
Duration 6h37m
Meal F
Aircraft Type 752
Operated By DL
So yes, it looks like customs and immigration and a change of terminal and plane for our unlucky OP.

[bardos]

That looks like exactly my itinerary. If this is true. This is brilliant news for me. It means no customs and immigration on arrival at SFO and a quick escape to catch my Amtrak train which I would maybe otherwise miss.

How sure are you that this is true? Very important for me to know beforehand. Is this a common occurrence, deplaning, customs and immigration and then onbound into the great USA?

Could you explain more about "two flights with the same number nonsense"?


Just called Delta and confirmed that customs and immigration will be in NYC.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Well, how can anyone reasonably allocate the same flight number to two completely seperate flights, one intercontinental, the other internal which are operated by different aircraft operating from different terminals?

No way is this a "Tech stop". That means refuel, crewchange or other technical reasons.

[Skylion]

The Delta itinerary shown above is definately NOT a tech stop. It's a nightmare as any change international to domestic at JFK is. Depending on what has landed just ahead of you it's tight too.
A tech stop is exactly what it says it is and is for refuelling, maybe a crew change and no passengers joining or disembarking. Passengers can be allowed off for a walk airside in the terminal but that's it. Thanks to extended aircraft ranges , Tech Stops are unusual now other than on charter flights. On scheduled services they tend to occur only on an ad hoc basis when headwinds have been higher than expected or weather at destination makes holding depays likely , in which case a technical landing , often not far short of the destination, (eg in extremis LGW for LHR) on a "fuel and go" basis. If Flight Time Limitations permit. Only if they don't may the flight be terminated at the destination point and the passengers be dispersed.

[Phileas Fogg]

And tech stops are normally planned for less than major airports, to expedite down time etc, whilst taking in to consideration the price of fuel at the respective airport.

Nobody in their right mind would even think of merely stopping for fuel in JFK, probably the busiest airport in that part of the States!

[PaperTiger]

Could you explain more about "two flights with the same number nonsense"?There are 3 basic type of flights to get from A to B:
1. non-stop flight
2. direct flight with stop(s) other than B
3. connection through X (or X and Y etc.).

The airlines often make little distinction between them when advertising service and fares. Countless people have booked 'direct' flights thinking them to be non-stops.

In your case I'm sure Delta offered 'direct' service MAD-SFO with just a little small-print notation of a technical stop. Which, we have agreed, is deceptive if not an outright lie. DL127 JFK-SFO is an entirely separate domestic flight and can be booked as such by passengers originating in NY. It is NOT a continuation of DL127 MAD-JFK as it might at first appear, meaning it likely would not be held for connecting passengers in the event of a delay MAD-JFK.

All US intercontinental airlines do this. TWA used to be the worst offender; there would be a dozen or more flights converging on JFK ostensibly bound for Europe but only two different planes actually continued on. These flights (TWA 800 was one) would 'inherit' the flight numbers from what were in fact just connections.

The most notorious was Northwest's NRT-MCO service, sold to unsuspecting Japanese tourists as a direct flight but involving a change of plane and a 5-hour (!) wait in Seattle.

Marketing nonsense intended to deceive the unwary. Glad it works out for you though :ok:

[Hartington]

You also need to be aware that if the flight from Madrid to New York is delayed there is no guarantee that the onward plane will be held. Despite the flight number this is two separate, connecting flights.

I'm also a bit surprised by your reference to an "Amtrak" train onwards from San Francisco. The nearest actual Amtrak stations (I believe and depending on your final destination) are at Oakland and San Jose. The Caltrain runs from San Francisco city to San Jose and can be accessed from San Francisco airport by using BART to Milbrae and, if your Amtrak train goes from San Jose, you can connect to Amtrak there. Amtrak advertise stops in San Francisco city but they are actually served by buses. If you are travelling to somewhere on the San Francisco Peninsular (e.g. San Mateo, Redwood City, Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, Palo Alto, Mountain View to name a few) you might want to look at the local bus service which actually serves the airport and is called SAMTRANS. If you look at the SFO website it also lists a whole range of other surface transport options (taxi, shuttle, express buses).

[ExXB]

Marketing nonsense intended to deceive the unwary. :ok:Actually this is done to influence how the flights are shown on CRS/GDS screen displays.

1. 'Direct' flights (i.e. single flight numbers) are shown first.
2. 'On-line' connections (including connections to flights operated by other carriers but bearing the code of the first airline - code share flights) are shown next.
3. Interline connections are next.

Within the three categories 'competing' flights are ranked based on various criteria such as elapsed time, requested departure time, etc.

So DL's practice here bumps their on-line connecting flight from Category 2 to 1 given them a (deceptively) higher placing on the screen.

[WHBM]

Actually this is done to influence how the flights are shown on CRS/GDS screen displays.
Actually this nonsense long predates electronic booking systems. Way back in the 1960s TWA used to do it extensively between their international and domestic flights, for what reason I never quite understood.

Yes, it is a fraudulent way to pretend that a connection is somehow a beneficial through service. Because rest assured, a connection is what it is. If the first leg into New York is late the second leg will most definitely be dispatched on time, and you will be a misconnect (which in all truth US airlines are better at handling than in some other places - presumably because they get so much practice in it). Also T2 and T3 at JFK are two wings of what is essentially the same terminal at its frontage.

But you will need to queue for immigration, wait for your bags, maybe queue again for the customs officer (over 30 minutes for this step alone when I entered the US last week), recheck your baggage, walk over to T2, go in through the security check again, and head down to the gate. There won't be any specal provision for through passengers, it will be like a connection to anywhere else.

US arrival points do have well-organised counters for rechecking your baggage the moment you exit the customs, you do not need to carry them over to the other terminal, and you will already have been issued with boarding cards for both legs, so you do not hae to check in again.

It is in no way a "technical stop" in either the aviation technical sense or in general speech. It is a connection. I have also seen the same misdescrbed (on a London-Washington-Los Angeles itinerary) as a "stop to clear customs", as if somehow imposed from outside by the authorities.

For the ops people who read here, you can doubtless envisage the situation where the inbound is 2 hours late and the outbound is dispatched, and both are possibly airborne together with the same flight number, maybe even both on the same frequency. In this case the second segment flight is renumbered at dispatch (for ops/ATC purposes only, not for the passengers), often by adding 1000 to the flight number, so for example the second sector of DL012 becomes DL1012.

[TG345]

Sorry slightly O/T but,

What is the reason that US flights use such specific timings - in this case 6:52pm. Surely 6:50 or 6:55 would be more logical?

[WHBM]

Sorry slightly O/T but,

What is the reason that US flights use such specific timings - in this case 6:52pm. Surely 6:50 or 6:55 would be more logical?
Timetable accuracy to 1 minute is something that US operators have always done, even going back to pre-WW2 their cross-country and other flights with DC2s etc have the same feature. I suspect it originated with US Air Mail contracts of the time, being done to the same accuracy as mail train timetables, which had always used 1 minute as well.

Occasionally you see it for operational reasons, such as a 6.59 departure where they cannot get a 7.00 slot. But you get this accuracy at minor uncongested points as well.

[blaggerman]

The connecting leg will certainly depart on schedule even if the first leg is running late. Not so bad if there are frequent flights to rebook on, but travelling the other way it's pretty annoying to be stuck for 24 hours because the second leg of a supposedly direct flight didn't wait.

For frequent flyers, this direct flight nonsense has other downsides. You can't choose seats online because DL's systems can't handle the equipment change on a single flight number. If they had separate flight numbers there would be no problem. Also, the miles you earn for the trip will be based on the non-stop distance MAD-SFO, not the two separate segments. It's fewer than 400 miles in the difference, but it's a odd way to do it.

[WHBM]

Alexander Frater's all-time classic aviation book "Beyond the Blue Horizon", written in 1985, describes a journey from London to Australia stopping at all the places Imperial Airways used to do 50 years previously. On his sector from Rome to Athens, Frater was booked on TWA, which at the time operated a 747 from New York to Rome, and then a 727 (same flight number, of course) on to Athens and Tel Aviv. TWA based a small number of 727s in Europe for such flights.

Frater describes the ludicrous situation that the 747 was running late from New York, and the 727, which was fully booked with connecting travellers, was dispatched on time to Athens with a load of him and six other pasengers. As the only work for the 727 that day was this single two-sector flight, it did seem a silly example of the application of US corporate procedures.

[Hartington]

But, WHBM, remember that the 727 then had to work back to make the connection the other way. Any given plane will work more than one flight - delay one for a connection and you don't know what other "damage" you might do downline.

Not saying that's the best way of doing things but there you are.

Oh and TWA weren't the only ones doing that kind of thing. Pan Am did it in Europe and Iberia did it with DC9s out of Miami to Central America that I can think of.

[WHBM]

But, WHBM, remember that the 727 then had to work back to make the connection the other way. Any given plane will work more than one flight.
No it didn't - it laid over in Tel Aviv until the following morning, and was achieving a very low utilisation. This is my whole point - that some theoretical "knock-on effect" ops approach was applied to a completely inappropriate situation.

[Exnomad]

Had one on a supposed 2.5 hour flight from Alicante. The Spaniard who blighted my life (Old reference) had dug up the runway, and the aircraft could not take off from the remaining bit with enough fuel to make Gatwick, refuelling stop south of Barcelona

[Rwy in Sight]

WHBM,

please think about the bonus the dispatcher might get for an on time departure.

Rwy in Sight