“Want to go from New York to Stockholm? Bet you didn’t know that Malaysian Airlines flies the route.
How about Vancouver to New York? Few people would guess Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong-based carrier can get you there.
Want to land in Geneva from New York? Surprise, surprise. Qatar Airways flies there nonstop.
How about Frankfurt to New York? Most people would look to Lufthansa for that route. Yes, Lufthansa, Delta and Continental fly it.
But here’s the secret flight: Singapore Airlines also flies it!
And last, but absolutely not least, there is now is a very cool way to fly from New York to Europe: through a hub in Brussels, Belgium. Ten years ago, the service was offered by Sabena, the Belgian carrier. Today, it’s offered by Jet Airways, a private international Indian airline, which stops there on the way to New Delhi.
Welcome to the world of “secret flights”: unusual routes flown by carriers you’d never guess would fly them. Are they really a secret?
No, they are published, scheduled flights with fares. But they are flown by airlines on routes you’d never expect.
The airline flying them use the routes as “fifth freedom” flights, meaning that individual countries give these airlines the right to stop in their country en route to the airline’s base country.
Specifically, under international agreements, it means this: It is the right of an airline from one country to land in a second country, to then pick up passengers and fly on to a third country where the passengers then deplane. And that means they can carry passengers on a point-to-point basis as well.
The benefit for you?” (via petergreenberg.com)
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