RTW through Cape Town
 

Any suggestions for an RTW routing that incorporates India (DEL or BOM) - Cape Town - Chicago without going through Europe? It appears connecting in Europe significantly increases my travel time, so would prefer to avoid it if at all possible.
Thanks,

<bad info sorry>

You can do it without europe. Westbound example:

ORD-NRT on NH or UA nonstop
NRT-BOM on NH nonstop
BOM-JNB on SA nonstop
JNB-CPT on whomever
CPT-xJNB-xDKR-IAD on SA
IAD-ORD on UA

The truth is, it's quicker to go via Europe because of the SA stopovers. You can fly CPT-LHR direct on SA and then grab LHR-ORD on UA. The distance is further, but you eliminate three stopovers (JNB, DKR, IAD) on your way to ORD in exchange for only one (LHR).

You can also fly to BOM from SIN and BKK, but there are no directs from ORD to SIN or BKK. So if time is an issue, NRT would probably be best.

EDIT: problem is the ORD-NRT arrives too late to grab NRT-BOM same day.

Does it have to be in the order you placed it? If you reverse it, the times work out a little better. I found the quickest to be:

ORD xFRA CPT on LH/SA at 20 hour duration.
CPT xJNB BOM on SA at 11.5 hour duration
BOM - NRT n/s on NH at 9 hour duration, arriving at 8:45am
NRT - ORD n/s on NH at 11.5 hour duration, departing at 10:35.

The NRT connection is a close one, but it's all NH so maybe they can tag your bags through to ORD.

Ironically, this is not a valid RTW because you only have 2 stopovers and you must have a minimum of 3. The tool seems to recognize that the NRT stop is less than 24 hours, and therefore does not consider it a stopover.

Per my previous post, if you're willing to spent 24+ hours in NRT, SIN, or BKK then your ORD/BOM options really open up. Otherwise, find one more place to visit for more than 24 hours.

This doesn't quite appear to fit with the timetables. At some point on the RTW trip you describe, you will have to get from ORD to or from CPT. It is possible, using UA & SAA flights, which are both in *A, to get quite simply from ORD to CPT, via IAD & JNB. According to Star Alliance's own timetable, however, the outbound routing via FRA is actually quicker than directly from the US, although there isn't a massive difference. The direct routing is more economical in miles (9507 as against 10160), but you have fewer sectors. The time difference is more substantial when you travel in the opposite direction (from CPT to ORD), the "direct" route taking about 4 hours longer. (This is because more sectors make for more time wasted in connections.)

It may also be that you don't actually need a full RTW unless you really want to cross the Pacific. A good travel agent may be able to construct you a good fare based on, say, combining the direct AA ORD-DEL flight with SAA BOM-JNB, returning via Europe or the SAA flight to IAD. Only you can decide which would best suit your requirements.

You don't have to go through Europe and it is not quicker to go through Europe. SAA's JNB to IAD and JNB to JFK services no longer stop in Dakar. They are non-stop on A340-600s.

SA207 is still flying JNB-DKR-IAD. It is not a non stop service. So is JNB-JFK which is still on an A343. At least according to the SAA website and for departures in Feb, March and April.

When I looked at the website I couldn't find any mention of a DKR stop. The only other thing I have now heard is that the JFK-JNB and IAD-JNB are nonstop, but the return flight JNB-JFK or JNB-IAD does stop in DKR because it cannot make it through the headwind and needs more fuel.

The 'Flight Search' function on the *A webpage and the downloadable *A Timetable (the latest one I have says 'valid until 15.4.08') both say, for JNB-IAD and JNB-JFK, 1 stop.

cheers,

Henry

Thanks
 

Thanks to all for the very useful feedback. I think I have some good options available now.

You can also come through South America. SA has a non-stop JNB-GRU. If only *A had a way to get from South America to New Zealand, you could do a RTW all in the Southern hemisphere.