[ImissConcorde]

Far less exotic but, when I started work at Heathrow there was a service LHR-CAX_DND Can’t for the life of me remember who the operator was.

[dutchyankee]

London to Dundee via Carlisle sounds pretty exotic. When was this? Could it have been Suckling Airways or Logan? I have no idea if either served LHR, I do know Suckling served Luton and LCY. Maybe BA flew it, or BEA at the time, depending on how long ago?

[AMcWhirter]

Hello TominScotland – not strictly correct regarding 5th Freedom rights. There were of course some exceptions but these were liberally granted in the old days (ie before the advent of lengthy non-stop flights) otherwise these multi-stop services would never have been financially viable.

Remember that Pan Am’s two famous globe encircling flights, PA1 + PA2, would never have been possible without the benefit of 5th freedom rights.

Hello LuganoPirate – here are two pages from a Lufthansa timetable of 1966. They show the multi-stop schedules of Lufthansa between Europe, Asia and Australia.

Note that on the extreme right, at the bottom, there’s a short list of those sectors where 5th Freedom rights were unavailable. In other words, as you can see, these rights were freely available.

Eastbound

http://timetableimages.com/ttimages/lh/lh66/lh66-06.jpg

Westbound

http://timetableimages.com/ttimages/lh/lh66/lh66-07.jpg

[millionsofmiles]

@ LondonCity

Thanks for these unique photos of the old timetables.

Amazing, how ALL connections were shown, LH, AF/UT, JL and others. Also, most cities were just flown to 2 or 3 times a week.

Fare differences in these years were simple, F was about 50% more than Y, and in Y you had something like 3 to 5 tariffs only, which were the same for all airlines at the same location. Due to IATA.

[LuganoPirate]

Dutchyankee, I remember flying that route with KLM, though it must have been later as it was in the 747 and would do AMS-DBX-CMB-SIN. Not sure if it went onwards. The return would be via Delhi.

I remember one flight, at night, with a big thunderstorm over the Himalaya’s. I was on the right and Everest was completely illuminated by the lightning. It was one of the most awe-inspiring sights I’ve ever witnessed. The more so from the comfort and warmth of my seat.

[LuganoPirate]

Thanks LondonCity. Fascinating and I’ve printed them out to study a bit more. I love those old timetables which due to the age of the Internet have largely been abandoned by the airlines. Where on earth do you find these things?

I’m sure you also remember Millions, that in the old IATA days, you could book lots of stopovers, multiple carriers, and diversions. By adding a small percentage to the fare you could add a certain percentage of extra miles to the journey.

How simple life was then and how useful a copy of the ABC guides were with their timetables and fare calculation guide!

[millionsofmiles]

@ Lugano

Yes, I made myself become an expert in IATA-Ticketing. You could construct tickets with any number of stopovers as long as you stayed within the MPM (Maximum Permitted Mileage) otherwise you needed to add on between 5 and 25% to the fare for the exceeding distance. Also, HIPs had to be avoided, socalled Higher Intermediate Points. There was a LOAD of rules and regulations, but it was interesting.

Sometimes it took me two hours to construct a ticket from, lets say Kuching(Malyasia) to europe and back in F, and ending almost 40% lower than the computer suggested on the first try.
For me, it was a kind of mental sport, and I always flew F, my company paid full Y or C as max. for a ticket starting from Germany.
The ABC guides weighed about 6kg but were essential in constructing tickets.
My best day in that activity way when an old experienced chap of LH said: You are an expert! to me since I showed him a few things he didnt even know. (SITI/SOTO useabilities)
And I loved that you could issue certain sectors as YY in the carrier box, so any airline would accept the ticket.

[NTarrant]

Ahh! Those were the days, Higher Intermediate Points, one way back hauls and side trips. The joy of issuing multi sector tickets and then making a mistake on the last one!

It took you two hours Millionsof miles? We used to have to work it out in a quarter of that time, no computer, but we could ring BA would call you back with the fare, if the first sector was on BA

[millionsofmiles]

@ NTarrant

It took you less time than than me, but I was just a traveller and learned it by doing, just with the ABC and and old guide book. I worked it out and then told my travel agent how to issue, he loved it since no work for him, but issue a fat ticket. At that time they got 9% of tct revenue as commission.
It was just a hobby, but I was kind of mesmerized by the possibilities.

How are tickets done nowadays with multi-sector on different carriers, is there any kind of “published tarriff” any more? I stopped travelling some time ago, so I am not up-to-date.
BTW, one o the masters of this business was Chawla Travel in Bangkok, his record is a 42 stop RTW , in the 90ies I used to buy there often, when I needed IATA tickets. But already then, Point-to-Point discounted tickets were available in C, not in F though. F was only on some newcomers like EK or disguised as an IT-Ticket with an F-surcharge, even SR and LX did it. In the 80ies SQ was the wildcat in discounted tickets, just for getting market share.

[SenatorGold]

Until the introduction of Apex fares in or about 1973 on the London to Johannesburg and vvv route, the only alternative to the ordinary F and Y one way and return fares were excursion fares. In the off-peak season, the 14/45 day excursion fare was available. Flying from South Africa, a minimum stay of 14 and a maximum of 45 days in Europe was required. A total of five stop overs en route to London were permitted. In September 1972 the fare was ZAR 524. In peak season, the 19/90 day excursion was available. Fares were so stable in those days that South African Airways published the applicable fares in their public timetables.

Varig and SAA offered an excursion fare allowing circular travel South Africa – South America – North America – Europe – South Africa. In 1972 the fare from Johannesburg was ZAR 606. Travellers were required to spend a minimum of 14 days in the Americas.

In those days SAA had pooling arrangements on most routes they served whereby they shared revenue with their foreign counterpart. The exception was New York where their foreign counterpart was Pan Am. SAS offered the only direct service from JNB to CPH and there was no pooling arrangement with SAA.

On fifth freedom rights, SAS had limited local traffic rights between JNB and ATH and seats for this sector of the JNB-NBO-ATH-VIE-CPH weekly flight (first on the DC8-63 later DC10-30), were available only on special application.

[NTarrant]

Millionsofmiles – we used to get 9% on international and 7.5% on domestic, but then the fares were the same for each route irrespective. in the late 70’s bucket shop deals could be had with KL via AMS but we were forbidden to sell anything like that.

I did a 26 sector for a customer, but that was a bit in Europe and then in the US and South America.

SenatorGold – I remember selling the 14/45 excursion tickets and the popular one to Europe was the six days one month excursion before APEX and PEX tickets. There were one or two places which didn’t have and type of excursion tickets, just full F or Y

[RussShaw6]

I enjoyed this post…and it got me thinking…before every airline flew either ‘hub and spoke’ or point to point, airlines had some interesting routes. Two ‘long ones’ for me in the 1980’s were: 1) TWA from Phoenix-Albuquerque-Witchita-Kansas City-Chicago O’Hare (much cheaper than the nonstop, but a very long day!) and JAL (Japan Asia Airways) from Tokyo NRT to Bangkok to Abu Dhabi to Kuwait and finishing in Cairo (thankfully, that one was at the front of the plane on Air Miles)…

[LuganoPirate]

Who remembers all the Aussie backpackers who would congregate at the Trafalgar Square end of Haymarket looking to buy or sell the return part of their tickets? It didn’t matter the name on the ticket in those days!

[Gridley]

I remember as a child flying across the Pacific with BCPA – Sydney – Fiji – Canton Island – Honolulu – San Francisco and going to bed in the plane which had bunks with sheets!. In 1961 I flew from London to Sydney – London- Rome-Athens-Cairo-Karachi- New Delhi – Calcutta- Singapore – Jakarta – Darwin – Sydney. We could stop as many times as we liked as long as we kept gping forward on a RTW ticket.!

[MarkCymru]

Often the only way around Africa was on various Eastern European airlines with fifth freedom rights. I remember Harare – Cairo (stopping in Nairobi) on Balkan. The big difference between business and economy was that you got as much brandy as you wanted and Bulgarian craft gift. My trip was relatively uneventful but a colleague once had to help them pay for fuel in NBO (on his Amex as their credit line had run out — he was re-paid in cash when they got to Sofia).

And then, of course, Air India, El Al and Iran Air all flew LHR – JFK every day (and all sold bargain standby tickets in the late seventies)

[Author]

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