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The rules can be satisfied so long as you're careful. Airlines do this routinely; Qantas, for example, flies New York (JFK) to Sydney, with a stop in Los Angele
by ubernostrum 10y ago
The rules can be satisfied so long as you're careful. Airlines do this routinely; Qantas, for example, flies New York (JFK) to Sydney, with a stop in Los Angeles. But you can only buy the ticket New York-Sydney or LA-Sydney, not New York-LA, and this is why. So long as anything or anyone you deliver originated at a port outside the US, or you only ever pick up at ports in the US and never drop off, you're on the right side of the cabotage rules.
- TorKlingberg 10y agoThat sounds like a giant waste. There must be many empty seats New York-LA, at least one for each passenger flying LA-Sydney.
- ubernostrum 10y agoQantas can't do much about this at the moment. Their current widebody fleet consists of: * Airbus A330-200, maximum range 8,360mi. * Airbus A330-300, maximum range 7,300mi. * Airbus A380-800, maximum range 9,400mi. * Boeing 747-400, maximum range 8,350mi. * Boeing 747-400ER, maximum range 8,820mi. But the great-circle distance JFK-SYD is 9,950mi. It was only recently that they were able to start DFW-SYD as a nonstop with the A380; the 747s used previously had to make a stop in Brisbane. And once it went nonstop, it was the longest regularly-scheduled commercial airline flight in the world until March of this year, when Emirates began flying nonstop from Dubai to Auckland. Currently, Qantas is said to be evaluating the next-generation 777 variants for possible nonstop service to and from New York, but until then they'll have to make a stop somewhere. They have the same issue in the other direction, too: they partner with Emirates so they can use Dubai as a halfway point for their flights to and from Europe.