Dear OW Geniuses,

I am organizing another RTW beginning in March and need your assistance if this is doable on an OWE ticket. Here are the segments that I need to pass through or already know: ZRH-LHR-SFO-SEA-HNL-AKL-SYD-BNE-SIN-LHR-ZRH. It seems to me that the trouble segments are SFO-SEA-HNL-AKL as there seem to be no direct connections for these segments on any OW airlines. One possibility I�ve come up with looks like this: SFO-DFW-SEA-DFW-LAX-HNL-LAX-SYD-AKL. My constraints are that I am flying in First (tough constraint huh?) and I want to make absolutely every effort to be on a 3-class plane when ever possible. I�ve also read that the HNL service from DFW is, should we say, not pleasant and that it is preferable to make the jump to HNL from either LAX or SFO. Thoughts?

Jenn

You would have to go SFO-DFW-SEA-DFW-LAX-HNL-SYD-AKL

Well, you will have a problem with HNL-AKL. The only option, bearing in mind that you cannot go back to US mainland, is HNL-SYD-AKL, and QF is the OW carrier that does those sectors, and they only do it three days a week (Sun, Tue, Fri as floight QF4 HNL-SYD) and they use a 747-200 aircraft which only has 2 classes (J and Y).

Sorry to bring dissappointing news, but while the 747-200 (and 300's for that matter) remain in the fleet, they will tend to be used on the shorter hops like HNL-SYD and they lost the F seats years ago. F is only offered on the QF 747-400 aircraft now.

But the flight is not all that long, and QF J is not a bad product, even on the -200 with the old J seats. Although it was possibly better when they used to fly daily with a 767-300 and you had a good chace of the new J seats.

That said, if you do it on Feb 10th or 12th (or 19th according to the schedule, but I wouldn't trust that), there is a good chance of getting a last ride on a classic beast, the QF 747-SP VH-EAA before the old girl is retired . Still only 2 class though.

So the OWE rule is that I can't return to the mainland once out in Hawaii? That's disappointing as I was hoping to catch up with a friend while passing through LAX.

I know the QF742s and 743s fairly well. For some reason, QFs use of these planes and my normal travel routes in AsiaPac coincide. I've also seen the 747SPs from the outside (never in one though). Strange looking beasts. Are they really faster than the other variations?

Correct. Another consequence of this rule is that you can't go to Hawaii at all if you are continuing on to Asia from North America.

The SP has an every so slightly higher normal cruise speed. The -200, -300 and -400 are generally considered 572Mph while the SP is 580 (according to what QF call "average cruise speed").

According to Boeing, the "Classic" 747's all have a typical cruise speed of 555mph (0.84 mach), and the 747-400 of 565mph (0.85 mach). So it a difficult to find apples-to-apples comparision (avg cruise speed, typical cruise speed, max speed etc).

They do look strange, and lets hope JT fulfils the rumour that he is interested in buying and preserving/flying EAA.