How Does Flight Connections Work?

Foreword

With multiple connections, a variety of airlines and stopovers that can be complex to anticipate, it can be difficult to visualize all the flight options available from a given airport. This is precisely where Flight Connections comes in, an innovative online tool that revolutionizes the way travelers explore and organize their itineraries. Especially for people who want to take a Mini Round the World (MTW) tour.

With its intuitive interactive map and comprehensive database of worldwide flight connections, Flight Connections lets you see at a glance all the destinations served by an airport, identify direct or stopover flights, and filter results by airline or day of the week. Simple to use, yet formidably effective, this tool is an invaluable ally for personal travel planning, whether you’re a beginner or an expert.

With this in mind, I propose to show you how to plan a trip around the world, paying particular attention to the various tools at your disposal to accomplish this seemingly colossal task. Flight Connections is one of these essential tools, capable of transforming a complex idea into a clear, coherent and achievable itinerary.

The Flight Connections Tool

The first essential tool for planning an ambitious trip with Aeroplan is Flight Connections. This interactive platform offers a comprehensive overview of all existing commercial air routes worldwide.

For Aeroplan, Flight Connections is useful for finding out how to get to a location using only Star Alliance partner flights.

You could do exactly the same for an airline program belonging to an alliance such as British Airways Club ( Oneworld Alliance) or Delta Skymiles ( Skyteam Alliance).

To do so, select this alliance from the drop-down menu at the top of the page.

This view shows all the airports served by flights on the various airlines, most of which can be booked using your Aeroplan points.

An Advanced Tool

On the map, the general rule is :

• blue circles are connected to the most destinations,
• while the yellow and red circles are less well served.

Generally speaking, however, red dots will often be dead ends, so be aware of this when planning an MTM, because you’ll almost certainly have to use one of your precious stopovers (or your destination) to get there without breaking the rules of planning Aeroplan with stopovers.

As these rules do not allow you to pass through the same airport twice on the same side of the destination, it will be impossible for you to include a cul-de-sac in your itinerary, except as a final destination. In addition, you are limited to six flight segments.

By clicking on a circle or entering a destination in the search bar, you will see all direct flights that exist from this airport.

From here, you have two options:

• You can either click on one of the presented destinations, which will allow you to see the flight schedules and the companies that operate them;
• or enter a second destination in the bar at the top of the screen.

In doing so, the tool will present you with all direct flight options, or failing that, those requiring a stopover or two, in ascending order of total flight time.

So if I set off from Montreal (YUL) and wanted to reach Japan, I’d immediately see that the only direct flight was on Air Canada, a company with dynamic fares that can be exorbitant.

This is when I can check that, rather than looking for direct flights only, I’m prepared to accept a stopover (or two).

In doing so, almost a dozen options now appear.

Navigating among these, I quickly realized that a connection in New York (EWR), Chicago (ORD) or Washington (IAD) would allow me to avoid Air Canada altogether and fly only United and/or ANA.

There are also options via Europe via Brussels (BRU), Zurich (ZRH) or Istanbul (IST), allowing you to fly with Brussel Airlines, Swiss or Turkish Airlines. Unlike Air Canada and United Airlines, these partner airlines operate on a fixed-price basis.

An Ideal Tool For Discovering Flights

Flight Connections does more than just search for direct flights or view connections. It’s also an excellent exploration tool, allowing you to discover unexpected destinations and enrich the planning of more complex trips, such as a round-the-world tour.

For example, if you’re planning an itinerary between Bangkok (BKK) and Athens (ATH), but don’t know which stopover to integrate between these two cities, simply enter these two destinations in the tool. Some fifteen results are instantly displayed.

Of course, Star Alliance hubs such as Istanbul (IST) and Cairo (CAI) come naturally to mind. But what about Addis Ababa (ADD), a stopover served by Ethiopian Airlines? This type of discovery considerably broadens the possibilities and increases the chances of finding available flights at points, offering more options for building an optimized itinerary.

Flight Connections is particularly useful when you want to explore destinations according to well-defined criteria. It’s not uncommon for travelers to ask this type of question: search for a possible destination on a specific date, ideally with a direct flight, lasting less than five hours, and for a maximum of 25,000 points. This kind of highly specific request may seem difficult to handle without spending hours on various search engines.

This is precisely where Flight Connections stands out. Thanks to its interactive map interface, it allows you to filter results according to several key parameters: travel dates, airlines, alliances, flight frequency and, above all, maximum journey time – invaluable information for limiting options to what is really feasible. In just a few minutes, you can identify destinations that are compatible with your time constraints.

For aviation enthusiasts or those wishing to travel on a particular aircraft, it is also possible to apply filters according to aircraft type. For example, all Boeing 787 Dreamliner flights departing from Montreal with Air Canada.

Once I’ve made my initial selection, I then use Roame, a complementary tool that allows me to check availability and points rates in various loyalty programs. It’s a particularly practical solution for comparing options and spotting the best opportunities. Note that the free version of Roame is more than sufficient for targeted searches on a few specific dates.

By combining Flight Connections for flight search and Roame for analysis of available award flights, you can quickly and efficiently identify relevant itineraries, while maximizing the value of your points or miles.

This is precisely the kind of information that Flight Connections provides, making visible connections that might otherwise go unnoticed. This ability to open up new perspectives makes it a must-have tool for any trip planner, whether it’s a simple round-trip or a more ambitious international itinerary.

Bottom Line

While it’s not an infallible tool, in my opinion it’s a must-have in your kit when it’s time to start researching for a simple weekend with specific criteria, or for your MTM.