MrGroover

Prologue

Anno 2016, in the German equivalent of Flyer Talk, vielfliegertreff.de, there where multiple posts addressing the United Island Hopper, a flight from Honolulu (HNL) to Guam (GUM) with 4 or 5 stopps on the Marshall Islands (Mahuro Atoll, MAJ, and Kwajalein Atoll, KWA) and in Micronesia (Kosrae Island, KSA, Pohnpei, PNI, and Weno Island, Chuuk, TKK). It doesn't take long for me to love those flights. United is using a 737, departs HNL at 7:25 am and arrives in GUM 5:55 pm the next day. When booking your trips on the Island Hopper, you have to be careful with the International Date Line, so you lose a day and save the expenses for another hotel stay.

After deciding to take the Island Hopper, I asked myself, how I can combine this flight. Well, something special seems adequate. The 737 used by United is currently the most built commercial aircraft. This implies that you can meet this aircraft quite often, even around the world. United is operating a small hub at Guam and connects to Japan, Hong Kong or Manila. Those destinations are served with 737 as well, but not exclusively, since Tokyo is served with 777 occasionally. Nevertheless, crossing the Pacific Oceans in a 737 is possible.

The next question was, whether this would be possible with the Atlantic Ocean as well. Doing a search her on FT, led to a thread (among some others). Okay, so unfortunately, I am not the first one with this idea. The solution to the Atlantic question was given in post #14. WestJet offers flights between Glasgow (GLA) or Dublin (DUB) and Toronto.

But wait, there was also the longest 737 route, Stavenger (SVG) - Houston (IAH) operated by Privateair dba SAS. Unfortunately, services stopped for the winter schedule in 2015. The reason for this route? Crude oil. The information I extracted was that there is Privateair, which I looked up and the routes they are serving. Doing this I dug up flight SK 927, Copenhagen (CPH) to Boston (BOS). The bottom line is that there is more than one possibility to cross the Atlantic in a 737.

After solving the question of those two ponds, the landmass was remaining. In Europe, there are a couple of airlines operating 737s: Ryanair, Norwegian, SAS, Turkish or airBaltic. Since phasing out all Bobbies, Lufthansa is not within those airlines. Having multiple options available, Europe should be easy to cover.

In Northern America, there are two challenges: the continent itself and the connection between the The Lower 48 and Hawaii. Unites is serving HNL from San Francisco using 737 aircraft. Another option would be WestJet from Vancouver. And there is Alaska Airlines, serving HNL from e.g. San Diego or Seattle. Besides those, there is Southwest, exclusively operating 737 aircraft. The conclusion: Northern America, east coast to HNL, is possible.

This already covers most parts of the globe, but there is still a gap between Guam and Europe. Finding suitable options, one can use the Matrix and its advanced routing codes---/aircraft t:737 is the magic keyword to use in this case. All one has to do is playing around with the airports, both destinations and connecting airports. It helped to break up the route in Istanbul (SAW) as TK exclusively used 737 from there. Unfortunately, the Matrix does not list all options, it lacks some airlines, mainly low cost carriers.

Okay, from here on I take a detour: coming this far, my idea of circling the planet in only 737 aircraft was established. Having some flying experience, one knows that lots of things can happen between booking and taking a trip. Especially equipment changes happen frequently. From personal experience, United was a memorable example with frequent changes. Thus it would be wise to minimize or eliminate the risk of equipment changes. Eliminating requires that a change leads to another 737. If you cannot solve the riddle: rely on airlines exclusively operating 737 aircraft. A European example is Ryanair, while in the US, Alaska Airlines (minus Horizon) or Southwest comes to mind.

At this point I decided to extend my search tools beyond the Matrix. This involves some investigation by oneself. Using Wikipedia you can find most airports including a list of airlines serving them. On the other side, for airlines you can also find a fleet info and destinations served. So all it takes is looking up airlines serving Guam and operating 737s. Among those are two Korean LCC (JeJu Air and T'way Airlines).

Switching back to the Matrix, one often finds flydubai as an option for traveling to SAW. flydubai is another airline, exclusively operating 737 aircraft, which qualifies them for my journey. The closest destination to Guam served by flydubai is Bangkok (BKK). On the other side, both Korean LCCs are serving BKK as well. Plus they are operating 737 only fleets as well.

With all those information at hand, the conclusion was inevitable: RTWs in only 737 are possible. Plus they are possible with a low risk of equipment changes. There are quite a few airlines, solely operating 737 aircraft.

I now tired to align schedules to make this thing work. For my October 2016 holidays I already had flights booked with Turkish Airlines. Over the last years, I usually did a two weeks trip in April/May. This is another time frame I looked up. There I hit a wall, WestJet is serving Europe only seasonally. This would limit my plans to May or later in the year. The other segments are served year round, so no issues there.

Another delay was introduced by me taking another job and relocating. This would limit my financial possibilities but also bound myself in a probation period. Taking a two weeks leave would not be an option within this period. I once again hat to delay my plans.

After settling in at my new occupation, I could safely bring up the topic of my annual leave. My plans now involved of combining this RTW with my annual visit of the San Francisco Fleet Week, which takes place in October. In October, my probation time would long be over and summer holidays would also be of no issue anymore. Those are fine preconditions for an extended leave. After getting the okay from my supervisor, I started concrete planning of my trip. After relocating, my home airport changed from Dresden (DRS) to Frankfurt (FRA), making planning a bit easier. After retiring all Bobbies, Lufthansa serves Dresden with A320 family aircraft. 737 are used by charter airlines to serve typical vaction destinations. Originating from DRS would have required me to have a connecting flight on something other than 737 or using another departure city, like Berlin. Having FRA as a home base should ease things.

Instead of WestJet, I preferred the SAS flight operated by Privatair. Finding a 737 connection from FRA to CPH was a little challenging, but possible using SAS and connecting in Oslo. Other destinations in the US besides San Francisco are the main US Navy ports, namely Norfolk, San Diego, and Bremerton & Everett (Seattle). To avoid the equipment change roulette United likes to play so often, I resorted to Southwest and Alaska Airlines. Arriving and departing in OAK instead of SFO allowed for direct connections to San Diego.

Getting to GUM was obvious. Connecting in HNL would give me the US Navy port in Pearl Harbor without any detours. My plans than were using Korean LCCs to connect to Bangkok via Seoul and then onwards with flydubai. In the mean time, Turkish decided to station also A320 aircraft in SAW, making SAW a non-737 only airport. This is why I switched to Norwegian, serving Dubai to Stockholm. SAS connects Stockholm and Frankfurt with an additional bonus of the rare 737-600. With SAS also flying A319/A320 aircraft, there is a risk of an equipment change. Well, to get the 737-600 I am willing to take this risk.

In March I started booking my flights. I hade some miles with Miles&Smiles to spend, which would expire by the end of 2017. With SAS and United being members of the Star Alliance, as well as Turkish Airlines, my plan was to book those flights using miles. The Island Hopper was relatively easy, even the 5 stops were no issue. Booking SK 927 CPH - BOS on miles was a completely different story. Both callcenter agents and agents at the ticketing desk were unable to find availaibilty on those flights. And what they cannot find, they cannot book. Using the United award search, I was able to find available award seats on those flights and on the date I wanted to travel. This is when I called Miles & More, where it was easily possible to get SK 927 and the connection from FRA to CPH via OSL.

In April and May I book the domestic US flights---Southwest and Alaska Airlines it was. With Northern Korea becoming more and more aggressive in their foreign politics, I started to get nervous about connecting in Seoul. The second best option was United connecting from Guam to Hong Kong. Additional research led to a routing with Malindo and flydubai vial Kuala Lumpur (KUL) and Colombo, Sri Lanka (CMB). United's award search showed saver award availability for UA 159 GUM - HKG, which is why I called Miles&Smiles again. Reserving this flight was easily possible.

Having the reservation to HKG, I booked flights with Malindo Air to Colombo and from there onwards to Dubai with flydubai. Furthermore, I booked the connection on Norwegian and SAS. Unfortunately, there were some ticketing issues for flight UA 159. To ticket a reservation done with Miles&Smiles on a Star Alliance carrier other than Turkish, you have to visit a ticketing desk. Only they are able to calculate the taxes and take your money. At the airport, the agent was unable to ticket my reservation. Re-booking the flight was also impossible, because there was no award availability. I did observe UA 159 award availability for some time and saw that it was available on some days and unavailable some days later. This was w.r.t. to the time of booking, the flight and date I was looking at was always the same one. At least I knew that there would be a chance, when availability was given and I was able to get to a ticketing desk shortly after calling to make the reservation. Ideally, this would be at the same day. As luck would have it, at one day I saw availability and knew I would be at the airport anyways, arriving from another flight. This is when I started another and this time successful approach.

Mid June and doing my regular check of my bookings, I found that there was change with my SAS SK 927 booking. Starting September 2017, SAS would be operating SK 927 by themselves instead od Privatair. Plus the flight would be on an A330 and not possible on my originally booked day. This is when I had to look for an alternative. Fortunately, there is WestJet. I found a suitable flight from Glasgow to New York LaGuardia (LGA) via Halifax and Toronto. Too bad, I already had booked my onward connection from BOS. Before writing off this ticket, I played around with the Southwest website and found a possibility to change a ticket. To my surprise, I was able to completly change the ticket, including origin. The only thing I had to pay would be a fare difference. Compared to European standards, this is quite a service.

I could easily cancel the Ticket for SK 927. Because of being a victim of a flight cancellation, the €50 fee was waived. However, I now had a gap in my itinerary between Frankfurt and Glasgow. Consulting the Matrix, I only found crazy routes, mainly due to the Matrix not knowing all airlines. I once again had to resort to detective work. Looking at Ryanair's destinations, I discovered that they would serve FRA from GLA, starting in September 2017. Quiet a perfect match. This was another reason for routing via GLA instead of DUB, as DUB is not directly served from FRA by Ryanair. With my first Ryanair booking, I was able to close the gap.

Ryanair was also the first airline, where I could complete online check. Exactly 60 days out---Aug. 1---I completed online check-in, resulting in sequence number 1 on my boarding pass. In the mean time, tensions were raising on the opposite side of the globe. Two childs wanted to start a pissing contest, which boosted Guam right in the middle of the conflict. Being far out from both main lands makes interesting for both parties. For me this meant looking for a potential backup. After putting some thoughts into it, I decided against a flexible backup. I wanted to do the Island Hopper. Plus it was over two months out, which would give me enough time for searching a backup in case this was turing into an issue.

Meanwhile and with all destinations known, I booked all hotels. One could expect another promo for the last part of the year, which surfaced in August. Most of my bookings had been completed by then already, but mostly flexible ones. The main advantage of such flexible bookings is that you can get a lower price afterwards. You just need to regularly check your dates and in case of lower rates, just modify the booking. This worked out for Norfolk, San Diego, Honolulu, and Guam. In Glasgow I switched from my Hampton-Inn reservation to a non-Hilton aiport hotel. This was for two reasons: I had booked a side-trip to Barra, and my best buddy would be in the area at the same time.

Three weeks out, I also booked the rental cars. I would need one in Norfolk, San Diego, Seattle, Guam and for a day on Oahu. I checked three sites, Alamo via Germanwho (giving up to 20% discount), Avis via Miles and More and directly on rentalcars.com. 4 out of 5 bookings where placed with Alamo, where a midsize was equally priced as a compact or smaller on all other sites. Only on Guam I went with Avis, earning me some additional Miles & More milage.

With everything booked, I only had to wait for my first day off. With plenty of stuff to do at work, time flew.

Okay, I'm in.