Thread: Whats the most interesting routing from an airline you have seen?

You're posting the famous ISLAND HOPPER. Continental Micronesia has been doing that run since 1968? The island hopper consist of usually going from Guam to Chuuk to Pohnpei to Korsae to Kwajailein atoll to Majuro and then to Honolulu. Since the merger, it is now UAL. NGO is Nagoya. You can go to Nagoya from Guam. You don't have to do the island hopper. You can go from HNL to GUM without doing the island hopper. The island hopper is for island service to those living on those islands and also for a few adventure going tourist. Talk about a milk run. We had flight mechanics doing the island hopper. Most of them didn't have ETOPS training at the time, therefore, they were confined to doing the island hopper. If you had ETOPS, you flew mostly to HKG and NGO, FUK, NRT. The island hopper mechanics had to stop in HNL for the night and then come back on another island hopper. It was a long haul, money was good, but they hit some atolls that were rough landings and very tight landings especially in Chuuk. I was thinking of doing the island hopper on the way back this time from Philippines but not 100 percent sold on that yet. Of particular interest to me is PNI. Maybe if the flights look good. I will definately try to avoid Narita this time.

They used to fly alot of TUNA and fish from the FSM to GUM. We had plenty of fish spills in the cargo compartments. Sometimes you had to watch for that weight restrictions. Those guys don't like to leave nonrevs behind. They do anything to get you on. Even put you in the cockpit. (Back in the day. Don't know the now.)

I wish we flew UAL to NGO from IAH. I wish they flew from NRT or NGO to MNL without having to go via GUM.

I don't really need to tell you what FSM stands for do I?

Here is an interesting experience. You would figure that it takes longer to get to Philippines from the states than to Saipan if you look at a map, and figure that Philippines is nearly 1000 miles to the west of Guam/Saipan. But it doesn't always turn out that way in flying time. Here is why. Supposing you fly to NARITA, now you connect to your next flight that takes you to Manila or Saipan. There is a direct flight to Manila from NRT, however, there is not a direct flight to SPN but it goes down to GUAM. From my experience, it takes 4 hours from NRT to MNL and 4 hours from NRT to GUM. (About the same flying distance from Narita either way.) So now, if you go to MNL, you are finally there in 4 hours, but the ordeal is not over if you are trying to destination it to Saipan. You now landed on Guam, have to wait for the next flight to SPN and then add another hour or so flying time and clearing customs in Saipan. So it actually takes longer to get to SPN than it is to Manila going via Narita, Japan. If you go the other route like IAH-HNL-GUM-MNL to destination it to Manila or you go IAH-HNL-GUM-SPN to destination it to Saipan, it would probably take you longer to get to Manila considering flights left at the same time and all but only by say 2 hours. Long story short. They are both LONGASSED painintheass flights and destinations to get to anyway you cut the butter with the knife.