4 flights in one day, 4 airlines - Asking for Trouble?

[Jack1985]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to experience 2 new airlines flying from Cork on 4 flights within one day. My current plan is to fly outbound from Cork with Aer Lingus/Ryanair and inbound with either one again. Im hoping to fly with two new airlines to me easyJet and Wizz finding the best routes timiming wize seems difficult, can anyone recommend a minimum connection time from there own experience? Thanks :)

[Tableview]

The best advice I can give you is don't. If you miss one flight it will impact the rest. There is no such thing as a connection in this instance, you have 4 separate contracts and you will not get the slightest sympathy from either the delivering or the outgoing carrier if there is a delay.

If you give me your proposed routing I can give you the official MCTs for each airport, but in this context they are irrelevant.

[ConstantFlyer]

Jack

A great idea. I love doing that sort of thing. A few months ago I enjoyed a nice roundabout trip from Newcastle routing via Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney to Southampton. I had a long-awaited chance to fly on some Trislanders. I did my four flights in under seven hours!

From Cork you have some good possibilities, zig-zagging across the Irish Sea. As long as you are hand luggage only, and transit airside where possible (sadly not as possible as it should be), you should be fine with 70-90 minutes for most turnarounds.

How about this for a Saturday?:

Cork dep. 0645 to Birmingham arr. 0815 EI3700 AT7
Birmingham dep. 1045 to Belfast City arr. 1150 BE404 E95
Belfast City dep. 1300 to London Heathrow T1 arr. 1420 BD 087 319
London Heathrow T1 dep. 1600 to Dublin arr. 1720 EI167 320
Dublin dep. 1850 to Manchester arr. 1945 EI214 320
Manchester dep. 2125 to Cork arr. 2300 EI3729 AT7

That's 6 flights in a day, though it is a bit Aer Lingus-y.

Or this - a trip to Monte Carlo - also on a Saturday?:
Cork dep. 0805 to London Stansted arr. 0925 FR902 738
London Stansted dep. 1145 to Nice arr, 1455 U23101 319
Nice dep. 1545 to Monaco arr. 1551 YO1545 NDE
Monaco dep. 2000 to Nice arr. 2006 YO2000 NDE
Nice dep. 2210 to Cork arr. 2345 EI825 320

It is, of course, important to prepare for delays by having a back-up plan. With relatively short British Isles and near-European journeys, if you do miss a flight it may still be quite expensive to get back to Cork and require an overnight en route. But if you are able and willing to take that risk, and it really is what you want to do for fun, then enjoy it.

[Jack1985]

you have 4 separate contracts and you will not get the slightest sympathy from either the delivering or the outgoing carrier if there is a delay.

Yep I'm fully aware of this but considering I'm young I get quite a thrill of being on my feet all day hopping from plane to plane, haven't had much time off from work and the last time I done something like this was in April '11 when I done 4 Ryanair flights (ORK-DUB-STN-DUB-ORK) and found it no problem although I had I think a minimum of 2hrs connection time.

Wow ConstantFlyer thanks for that great list of options :D I'm going to see if I've deep enough pockets for all thouse flights though :ok:

[cavortingcheetah]

It would be amusing to do this on a round the world basis with each leg on a different airline flying from east to west to minimise the jet lag factor.
Ideally one would want to go business class, not first class which would be a waste, nor premium economy nor equivalent. Amsterdam would be an excellent start point but you'd then have the moral dilemma as to whether Delta counted as a different airline altogether. Perhaps it would also be sporting to impose a time zone maximum on any one flight so that, say, GMT - 5hrs and incremental thereafter would be the maximum allowable in any one sector. This would allow for AMS/SFO/HNL and then onwards for example. You could also, to be really rather hard on yourself, insist on the use of accumulated air miles for ticket payment. Perhaps something in the order of 300,000-500,000 miles would do the trick?

[davidjohnson6]

Jack - if 4 or 6 short haul flights in a day would put a smile on your face I am loath to say don't do it - you're the main person tasked with making you happy.

Could I suggest however doing it over a 2 day weekend instead ? Give yoursel a bit more time and try to enjoy the place(s) you go instead of just seeing airport terminals.

If you're paying for the flights, turn the trip into a weekend break. I can think of worse places to spend half a day than Nice or Monaco - stay in a youth hostel if money is a bit tight. Even London can be quite enjoyable for a night.

[Tableview]

Of course it could be great fun, I was looking at it purely from a logistical and looking at the question Jack asked - Looking for Trouble?
As I am frequently asked to sort out the problems people incur when they book a series of flights and then miss one due to a late arrival, I sounded the note of caution. If Jack misses a flight the cost of continuing the journey on another flight and buying a ticket at the last minute will be high.

If you travel A-B-C on a network carrier you can get your boarding cards at 'A' for both sectors. If you do it on a non-network carrier, at 'B' you have to exit to landside, check in again, and clear security. That is why MCTs are irrelevant.

[Skipness One Echo]

If you got £500 that you can afford to lose to get you back if something goes amiss then go for it. If you're on a budget, are you sure you're not going to be stuck abroad if you miss a connection?

[ExXB]

If you travel A-B-C on a network carrier you can get your boarding cards at 'A' for both sectors. If you do it on a non-network carrier, at 'B' you have to exit to landside, check in again, and clear security. That is why MCTs are irrelevant.

Agree MCTs are irrelevant for a LCC connection, however since you will already have your LCC boarding card (printed in advance at home) there is no need to go landside (unless all connecting passengers have to do this at that airport). This assumes no checked bags, but for a day trip this is a given. It is possible to connect at many airports without doing security again, but this differs by airport and origin point. None in the UK would allow this though.

[Skipness One Echo]

You can do UK airport connections without reclearing security so long as you arrive from a UK airport.

[TCAS_Alert]

You can never be entirely sure, especially with different airlines, but I did the following in December:


BLK-IOM NM NM103 LET-410 08:25-09:05
IOM-DUB RE RE374 ATR42 11:10-11:50
DUB-LHR EI EI168 A320 14:10-15:25
LHR-MAN BD BD592 A320 17:55-19:00

No trouble at all with connections (and I had to do airport check in at LHR for the last leg). A lot of sitting around in airports, could easily have had a bit less of a gap at each airport.

[smith]

I used to do similar kinda stuff when ryanair used to do their penny flights and there were no credit card charges with certain cards. I used to book like a hundred flights all over europe and it would cost me a £1. I would book the connections for the shortest layover and one for the next in case I missed a flight, I lost a few pennies during my time but not complaining lol.

One of my favourites was flew PIK-STN at 6.45am, got off plane and just rejoined the queue and got back on same flight back to PIK. I had paid a penny for the next flight back if I wasn't allowed on this one, but no probs, was back in PIK by 9.30 and on the golf course by 10.

I did get some funny looks from the cabun crew on the return flight though :0

[DXBWannabe]

Having gotten in several issues in the past when trying to just use 2 airlines i can't even imagine what a nightmare co-ordinating 4 airlines could be.