Record Time Around The World
 

I hope this is the right forum. I am thinking of a project for charity that would involve flying round the world only on scheduled flights, staying airside, and doing it as fast as possible! I would be leaving from and returning to Boston, USA.

I think going West to East is the way to go. I think a combo of BA, Qantas, and either AA or United or US Air would be the way to go, but I have not done the research yet.

What would be the suggestions of the professionals here on the quickest route?

Thanks in advance.

Ozzy

Hi Ozzy, the reason that your question was put in here is because professional pilots do not follow airline schedules! They follow the list of sectors that they must operate. When working long haul they do not connect to other flights because, when they arrive, they are going to go to the hotel and sleep and then ... usually operate the return sector to where they started. So they will not know what it is like to connect at Zurich. (I pick that as an example because someone asked about connection times in Zurich just the other week. They were on a very tight time schedule and within a couple of days, there were replies from people who travel through ZRH every week.)

The folks in here are not spotters (is that an anorak I hear rustling in the wardrobe??? :8) but the folks who do what you are planning to do and have done it for some time. We know about all the carriers that operate between most city pairs and if we don't know them - we know where to look for the information.

In this happy cabin of PPRuNe (as we like to think of ourselves :p) you have people who might travel on 100+ sectors a year to many different countries. They know which airports are slow for connections and where you might not be able to stay Airside, however much you might want to. We get questions every week about carriers, fares, airports and connection/transfer times at airports from London to Sydney to Hong Kong.

The pilots don't know airports from the pasenger perspective - of course they travel through some when they are on vacation but they have not built up the day to day usage reports that we generate in here.There are all the nations of the world in this fabulous forum that can give you expert local knowledge ... and you just insulted them all by asking to talk to the Pilots???

Welcome aboard :}

Thanks people, I appreciate your assistance and explanations! This is just at the concept stage but I plan on doing it around this time next year. I need to plan a route, obtain sponsorship, promote the event, obtain pledges from private parties etc. This would be in aid of two institutions who treat childhood cancers.

I came up with the idea last night and really want to go through with it if possible. I am going to find out if there is a record time for going round the world by scheduled air and attempt either establish one if there isn't or break it if there is!

Again, thanks for everyone's help.

Ozzy

I should reiterate I would be leaving from BOS and returning thereto.

I recall somebody doing it way back, and breaking an existing record. The trip included a Concorde segment so it would be pretty hard to beat.

I toyed with a similar idea once, involving making the longest trip possible by scheduled prop-driven aircraft. I managed to plan a route from Managua to somewhere in the Ukraine. Couldn't do it now, the Canada-Greenland and Iceland-UK links are broken.

Boston-Dublin-Bahrain-Dubai-Sydney-LA-Boston
I'm sure there are countless ways!!!

I did a Sydney-LA-Vegas-Denver-New York-London-Dublin in one go in 2001 and I was upsidedown for a week afterwards with Jetlag!

I did NRT-MSP-Boston-AMS-NRT years ago when the round-the-world in C was cheaper than NRT-AMS-NRT. And I've done AMS-NRT-AMS on KLM which would count as RTW because on the return leg we were denied entry to Russian airspace so went the other way!

What is, is there, a definition of 'round the world'?

It could vary from one extreme of spinning around through 360 degrees at the pole, to having to cover at least the distance of the equator.

Practically travelling from point A back to point A in a given direction, one of the quickest ways would surely be to minimise distance travelled. To do that one could travel for example, SEA-LHR-NRT-SEA with BA/NorthWest - three sectors with probably reasonably short connection times.

Looking it up quickly would give (all times local)

BA SEA 1820 -LHR 1200//1435 BA to NRT 1105//1525 NWA to SEA 0715

I reckon that to be about 38:55.

Some more research has turned up the following.

"The current record was set in 1995 and stands at 58 hours and 44 minutes. It involved flying on scheduled airlines through what are known as ANTI-PODAL points, that is, points on the earth's surface that are exactly opposite each other. The Guinness World Records rules state that the journey must include the airports closest to a pair of anti-podal points, must start and finish at the same airport, and must cross the Equator."

It also appears a UK based charity team is planning on doing pretty much the same thing I am planning, starting March 18 this year:{ Although their format is different, recruiting a team where I plan on doing it myself while focusing on sponsors to help with tickets. Good luck to them but I still plan on doing it next year and trying to break either the existing record

Ozzy

25 years ago (!) I came back from JFK to LHR on Pan American (RIP) PA007. IIRC this was a daily round the world service (747 Classic) that routed something like JFK-LHR-BOM-HKG-SYD-HNL-LAX-JFK. I think there was a similar flight (PA008?) westbound too.

Anyone remember this and know how long it took? Or am I having a 'senior moment' :(

Pan Am 1 and 2 were the 'round the world flights, if I recall correctly.
I know someone who is trying to plan a east to west coast trip where all flights are on turbo prop aircraft. It is proving to be quite expensive with all of those one way segments. J31s, Saab 340s, DHC-8s, BE1900s, his but'll be vibrating at the end of that trip.

TopBunkI see that Ozzy (thread initiator) has now looked this up. I must say that I am surprised it was set so long ago. This is the starting point of most any kind of record attempt:
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/

I am not aware of any scheduled RTWs, such as the PA 001+2 but many, many carriers and agents now have standard RTW tickets. The problem is that they are not always going to cover the Anti-Podal points and will be designed for the leisure / student pax and aimed to fill thin sectors in their catalogue.

I would have thought that the individual attempt would be more attractive to sponsors than a team. You can bill yourself as a Solo RTW trip! However, you would want to try and get your sponsors to put you in Club!!! Some years ago, I had to go LHR~SFO for a one day meeting and then on round to HKG and the whole thing in Y as the client would not pay C. That was only two thirds of the way around AND I got one night in a hotel and I was zonked big time.

• Svalbard, Norway/McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
• La Coruna, Spain/Christchurch, New Zealand
• Leon, Spain/Wellington, New Zealand
• Seville, Spain/Auckland, New Zealand
• Timbuktu, Mali/Fiji
• Bermuda/Perth, Australia
• Bogota, Colombia/Jakarta, Indonesia
• Lima, Peru/Bangkok, Thailand
• Asuncion, Paraguay/Taipei, Taiwan
• Santiago, Chile/Xian, China
• Buenos Aires, Argentina/Shanghai, China
• Cordoba, Argentina/Wuhan, China
• Bahia Blanca, Argentina/Beijing, China

I'd say Bermuda-Perth would be the most "do-able" BDA-JFK-HKG-PER-DXB-LGW-BDA without going into any detail. I'm assuming you have to keep going the same way east- or west-bound like the airlines' RTW tickets.

Virgin do a round the world trip, where you can chose your destinations. It also includes other airlines.

You can start from Boston with them.

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice, keep it coming as I start to pull this together. I certainly would be hoping to have airlines sponsor my seats around the world, perhaps I should approach the alliances, e.g. One World.

I did a very quick, not detailed (yet), calculation on BOS-LHR-SYD-LAX-BOS (with appropriate stops) and the total time clocked in at 58 hrs 30mins. Too close to the existing record and one delay can screw it up. The longest layover was in SYD at 5hrs 5mins. Saving 4 of those 5hrs would make a big difference. Of course, I'll do a lot more detailed planning to get a more accurate timing but that was my first back of the envelope total!

Ozzy

My guess is that no airline will sponsor you. the reason being that they get a thousand requests for sponsoship ever month and to try and sift through them would take a lot of man power. So they will sponsor a sports team or a charity once a year kind of thing.

For example, in the UK, British Telecom get many requests for free phone lines for charity events but only do one (massive) telethon a year. They provide ALL the telecommunications required for that. They get bigger results for less effort.

Small, regional airlines will do local sponsoship but not the big boys. they may provide some support and good will but not much more.

You need a hook.
 

There are lots of ways people raise money for charity, usually involving some physical endurance, such as walking from LA to New York, climbing the three highest peaks in Africa, or cycling from the Panama Canal or Tierra del Fuego. With each of these, there is an element of hard work and endurance, in addition to being somethig not many people can claim to have done.
Not to discourage you, but where are those factors on your 'round the world trip? The antipodes would certainly add something, but a somewhat straightforward BOS-LHR-BKK-SYD-LAX-BOS (which you could do purchasing a oneWorld RTW ticket) doesn't seem to provide the "endurance" element. How are you going to up the ante to make it appear more of a sacrifice or physical endurance? That may do well to bring on more attention.
Might I suggest that you insist on a middle seat in the middle section of each widebody flight, and middle seats for narrowbody flights? Not in business class, or World traveller plus, but the back of the bus, in the economy section. Make sure (in fact demand) the person in front of you recline all the way, and make sure that your inflight entertainment system is malfunctioning. And at least one or two of those flights there should be a delay on the tarmac resulting in time waiting for weather to clear. :8

Hi MiddleSeat, nice post! The hook is trying to beat the world record for doing this. No hotels, no sleep unless in a middle seat at the back of the bus. Different time zones every few hours, airline food, etc etc...:} airline food on its own is endurance enough for my goal of 51-55 hours which would be my target time.

Ozzy

"Team Effort"
 

According to their website http://roundtheworldrecordattempt.co.uk they set off last Sunday.
Any news of progress?