Originally Posted by
drvannostren
Can anyone tell me if HKG & SZX are interchangeable? Also ITM & KIX?
I feel like sometimes it's just a YMMV situation, because I swear I was told EWR was not "same city" (or whatever it's called) as LGA/JFK but then I think I've seen other people post to the contrary. I'm gonna guess that HKG/SZX are not, but does anyone actually know? ITM & KIX I would hope are, but it's much less important to me.
If you search on EF or even ITA Matrix by using the city's code, it brings up options to all of that city's co-terminals. For example, do a flight availability search between YTO and NYC, you will see direct flights between YYZ and LGA/EWR/JFK as well as YTZ-EWR, so you know YTZ and YYZ are co-terminals for Toronto and LGA/EWR/JFK are co-terminals for New York City.
Some other common co-terminal pairs:
TYO (Tokyo) - NRT/HND
OSA (Osaka) - ITM/KIX
TPE (Taipei) - TPE/TSA
SEL (Seoul) - ICN/GMP
SHA (Shanghai) - PVG/SHA
MOW (Moscow) - SVO/DME/VKO
IST (Istanbul) - IST/SAW
BER (Berlin) - TXL/SXF
PAR (Paris) - CDG/ORY
LON (London) - LHR/LGW/LCY
During IRROPS, a segment to one of the cities with co-terminals can be rebooked to the alternate terminal. For example, if your YYZ-EWR AC flight is cancelled, you can request to be rebooked on YYZ-LGA.
For the purpose of building RTWs, a common strategy for intra-Asia segments are the use of TPE/TSA-NRT/HND, ITM/KIX-NRT/HND, or ICN/GMP-NRT/HND where you fly into one and leave from the other. I do not know if they come in handy for the purpose of staying within the MPM though as I never got that close to the edge (my record is 12 miles out of a 13K MPM, but I wouldn't consider it close unless it's within 0.05%).