What is the difference between a flight segment and a stopover?
Flights
Appled asked:
Hi,
Hi,
I have been looking at a travel deal which says I am allowed 4 flight segments in total and 2 stopovers. Does that mean I can take 4 flights but can only get out of the airport twice? Basically if I take a flight from Toronto to LA via New York and decide to spend a couple of days in New York, would that be considered a stop over or part of the 2 segments?
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October 28th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
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You’re correct..
a stop over can be for a little while, or a few days… but you must enter and leave the same place..
A flight segment is time you spend flying in the air..
so the flight segment is between the place you get on the plane.. and where you stop.. and then when you continue to your destination.. you’ll be on a segment til you arrive at your final destination.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:24 am
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segment mean that you will be travelling from point a to b that one then b to c another one
stopover mean you canstop and restart from here
in you case 4 segment would be
toronto to new york 1
new york to los angeles 1
then return
would count toward that
stoover mean you can stop at any place the plane land and stay there for a couple of day
October 31st, 2008 at 2:00 am
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A flight segment consists of 1 takeoff and 1 landing OF THE SAME FLIGHT NUMBER. For example a “NON-STOP” flight from New York to San Francisco consists of 1 segment. A “DIRECT” flight means an intermediary stop in between New York and San Francisco, but not changing flight numbers, and usually not changing planes. This is also 1 segment. But if you “CONNECT” through a city from NY to SF (say in Chicago) and there is a change of flight numbers (even if the plane is the same), then you are taking 2 segments.
Whether or not you have a stop over (which is an intermediary, short-term extended stoppage at a location in between your final two city pairs), is irrelevant to the definition of a segment.
Most (but not all) stop overs occur at “hub” cities of the airline(s) which you are flying (again, for example, you are flying from New York to San Francisco via United’s hub at Chicago O’Hare - “ORD”). If the time in between your flights is greater than 4 hours, that usually counts as a stop over (this is true for most U.S.-based airlines).
So in your specific case, if you are flying from Toronto to NY, assume that is one segment. Then you stop over in New York for a couple of days - that is a stopover. Then you continue from New York to LA, that is your second segment - even if the flight number should happen to be the same as your flight from Toronto, because it was greater than four hours between flights (and, FYI, Toronto and LA are your “city pairs”). I assume you will have to fly back from LA to NY, which is segment 3, then from NY to Toronto, which is segment 4. You still have an outstanding stopover you can use. On the return, you might want to connect out of a different city rather than through New York (look at another hub city for the airline you are flying), so that you can have a stopover in a different city.
Last note: You usually cannot take “open-jaw” travel, unless it is specifcally allowed. Open-jaw means you fly from Toronto to LA but return from San Francisco to Toronto (or Toronto to LA, then LA to Montreal).
Good luck and happy travels!