Flight to Europe: two medium legs or one short and one long leg?

I live in the west too, with limited overseas options from my home airport. I’ll do anything to avoid the 2 medium hops heading east. Having to change in Toronto, Montreal or Chicago interrupts whatever sleep I might get and makes the first day in Europe even harder. I agree with Kaeleku, it doesn’t matter so much coming home.

Have you looked at United’s Star Alliance partner Air Canada from Vancouver? A good choice for Seattleites, and you can earn or use United points on AC.

Kaeleku's response makes sense.

For the $80 difference I would book the Delta/Virgin Atlantic nonstop or the BA direct flight.

I always try and minimize the US domestic sectors since the service is not that great - hence, I would go for the short followed by long leg option.

I would care more about lay over time. About 1 out of 3 times I fly United the flight is severely delayed. I quit flying the all together because of an overbooking. I had to buy a seat from a guy in the waiting room. Cost me hundreds. Anyway, I would choose the flight that had both layovers at least 2 hours, 2.5 better.

I prefer the fewest connections possible because more connections = more time in transit. I'd rather just get the flight over with as quickly as possible. Granted, I'm flying from the east coast so I probably have more direct flight options than a west coaster.

I have flown both of your options before: two medium and one short/long. I definitely avoid the two medium whenever possible due to potential issues with delay and the rather short time to sleep. Flying to Newark in November can be dicey due to potential weather delays.

Sandy

From Seattle, I would go with Icelandic Air. Only 6.5 hours to Iceland, quick layover and then down to London.

I've generally done the short leg followed by the long leg (Idaho to SEA or SLC/SEA or SLC to Europe) or short/medium short/long (ID to SLC/SLC to MSP/MSP to Europe). On a return trip home last month from Edinburgh I did med/med/short (EDI to JFK to SLC to ID) and I will not do that again. No matter how much of a pain in the neck it seems like spending 10 hours on a plane is, I'll go for that over the 2 medium segments. I'll ALWAYS have a short beginning or ending segment so that's not even a consideration.

Interesting to read these comments.

I sleep on planes. Heck, I can sleep almost anywhere, but I don't sleep well on planes. My sleep while flying is fitful and marginally helpful.

Consequently, when I was flying from the west coast to Europe (France) regularly on business before moving here, I always preferred two medium-length legs over one long one or a short+long one. Doing that, I always arrived feeling better and had less discomfort during the flight. So for me, I would prefer a flight from Seattle to Newark or Atlanta or Montreal, followed by another leg to my final destination.

But everyone is different. Ultimately, it depends on how you deal with long periods of confinement with low air pressure, low relative humidity, low mental stimulation, and limited opportunities for movement.

Yes, ideally get sleep on your way to Europe then stay up until bed time your first day. A short leg first probably gets you closer to sleep time for your long leg.

I decide more on the price of the flight. If I can save hundreds, I'll take two medium legs and try to get as much sleep as possible on both.

I also shop for total duration, including stops. Since my economy flight is the worst part of any trip, I want to get it over with as quickly as possible.

I get that you are a UA fan, but British Airways does seem to be a good nonstop option in November. Checking Google Flights for SEA-LHR round trip, I see a British Airways RT price of $607. That's for some dummy dates: departing SEA 11/7 at 6:25 pm and arriving LHR 11:50 am 11/8. Return trip departing LHR 11/21 at 2:30 pm and arriving SEA 4:25 pm.

I think leaving the west coast in the evening like that makes it a bit easier to sleep, if you can get to sleep around 9 or 10 west coast time. You arrive about 3:30 in the morning west coast time. The hardest for me are the flights that leave the west coast in the early afternoon and arrive in Europe just about my west coast bedtime.

I usually fly standby on Delta, but I have been known to pay for certainty when a nonstop deal is that good. At the same or a similar price, I'd always choose a 9.5 hour nonstop trip over the longer one-stop ones I'm seeing for United at a similar price. The shortest one of those (13 hours) seems to go through Chicago (ORD), but the connection time of just over an hour would be scarily short for me.

The only exception to my concern about short layovers would be flying Icelandair through KEF. The airport is very small. My experiment came up with a total flight time of about 12 hours and an RT cost of $497. If I have to do a stop, my preference is to do it in Europe.

If you haven't already, mess around with Google Flights to see the possibilities. You can limit to one stop or less and see every airline or click on Airlines to limit to Star Alliance for United.

Definitely San Francisco and then Ambien to London.

So if the price is the same....

Here are my thoughts. I would look at the connection time first. If it's too tight at SFO or EWR, it would be too stressful for me.

Next, I look at arrival time at LHR. I would prefer arriving at LHR at the earlier time.

Last, I look at the aircraft selected for the transatlantic flight. If United uses a 757-200 from EWR, the economy seat could be more cramped than if United uses a 777, 767-400, Airbus 340 or Airbus 330 from SFO. A bigger aircraft might be used more often from SFO than EWR because of the distance unless the EWR-LHR route is so popular, United picks its large aircraft for that route to accommodate demand.

To compare comfort levels in the economy cabin on transatlantic flights, go to www.seatguru.com and plug in the flight # and date. You will get specs about the seat info plus user comments. The website also gives you info about the seats so if you can select your seat, you can find out, for example, if the window seat in which you are interested in fact HAS a window as opposed to the seating arrangement being a little off kilter and you're left without a window. You can find out if the seat you want reclines fully or is blocked. That kind of detail. Always keep in mind that United could swap aircraft last minute.

Hope this is helpful.

One other thing that just occurred to me as I come back to this thread. WEATHER. EWR can have snow or be caught up in the last of the hurricanes for the year in November.

How much is the United flight?

I just did a dummy booking on British Airways before I read Lo's post. I found the same thing--SEA to LHR roundtrip in November for $600-$650, on the non-stop flight. Seems way better than a flight with an intermediate stop.

If you really want to fly United, I would be leery of a flight that connects through San Francisco in November. That airport is notorious for weather-related delays ( often fog), especially in the morning. They have to space out the landings and the whole schedule gets backed up. I have been on Alaska flights to SFO from SeaTac that delayed departure by an hour or more because they couldn't get an earlier landing slot.

If you do choose the SFO connection, make sure there is ample time between the two flights.

I'd say either a nonstop on another airline (British is good) or Icelandair with a short layover in Reykjavik. Or a connection through Vancouver if that works better. But I'd avoid a northern US airport like Minneapolis or Chicago or Newark that time of year because of weather risk.

I don't sleep well on planes so I try to just minimize the total travel time to get the damn thing over with. The idea of flying south to San Fran and from there to London makes no sense to me, just prolongs the agony, unless there's a really compelling price difference.

Hi all:

Thanks for your input. After looking at British Airways's website I decided to book a non-stop flight in each direction. The total cost is $742 RT. The best that United could do was about $700 with a layover in both directions (note: I was originally looking for a short leg - long leg flight but selected on the non-stop because it was available at a reasonable price and reduced travel time). So it will be $40 more. This is the same flight that is offered by American Airlines but they acknowledge that BA is actually providing the service. I booked today because AA stated that there was only one seat left on the return flight in my price range; BA didn't indicate this so I wonder if it is true or is ploy by AA to scare people into booking sooner rather than later. I didn't pay too much attention to the type of airplane, seat dimensions and the cabin layout when making the decision, but after flying with offbeat airlines such as Condor, Air Berlin, and S7 (Siberian National Airlines) last fall those factors are not too important for me (eg Condor offered only two free movies - both about five years old - and Aeroflot had a non-functioning entertainment center).

The good part is that if I flew on a two leg flight I would be leaving Seattle around 12 noon and arriving in London some time around 8 am to 12 noon while on the non-stop flight the plane leaves Seattle at 7:00 pm and arrives at 12 noon so I gain about 7 hours of Seattle time. Furthermore, the return flight lands in Seattle around 5:00 pm so I can use light rail and bus to get home for about $2 (senior rate) instead of $45 to take the shuttle express bus around mid-night. That makes up the difference between the BA and UA fares.

Geor, sounds like you found the perfect solution! Have a wonderful time.