Frolicking here on the beach in the turquoise waters of the Tasman Sea, our journey from snowy Maryland seems like ages ago …
We flew All Nippon Airlines (ANA) to Sydney, Australia. Their name is a bit weird—I mean, is there a Some Nippon Airline (SNA)? And their lofty motto, the “Inspiration of Japan”, is even odder and seems unnecessarily pretentious. But from start to finish, they did a splendid job indeed. The Japanese always do everything well, and with a genuine smile and grace. I especially like the flowered kimonos the stewardesses wear. And the bowing and prayer hands go a long way.
That said, it is impossible to sugarcoat such an overwhelming travel ordeal. We were bouncing around for thirty-five hours—and paying big bucks for the privilege.
Given the length of the journey, we decided to fly business class, which cost around $8,000 per person round-trip, but was well worth it because we had a bed and could go to sleep.
Getting the best airline deal to Australia is like playing five-dimensional chess. And when you try to go there in their very popular summer season, there aren’t a lot of deals.
General Price Range:
- The least expensive flights typically cost between $900 and $1,800.
- One-way flights can be found for as low as $417, though these are likely with budget airlines and may have multiple stops.
- Round-trip flights can be found for as low as $1,237.
Factors Affecting Price:
- Time of year:
- February is typically the cheapest month to fly.
- June is typically the most expensive month to fly.
- March and December are popular travel times.
- September is the least popular travel time.
- Airline:
- American Airlines often has some of the cheapest fares.
- Air Canada and Hawaiian Airlines also offer relatively affordable options.
- ANA offers flights from $1,287.
- Number of stops:
- One-stop flights are the most common.
- Cheaper flights often involve layovers in cities like Atlanta (ATL).
- Faster flights often involve layovers in cities like Los Angeles (LAX).
Then there’s Premium Economy, which offers seats a bit like a La-Z-Boy lounge chair. “Like”, of course, is a relative term. And thirteen hours in a chair like at a movie theater is undoubtedly better than the standard airplane seat, but it’s still a grind.
A premium economy flight from Chicago to Australia typically costs about $3,000. Round-trip flights from Chicago to Sydney can be found for as low as $1,382.
We started our epic journey out of Baltimore at the very reasonable hour of ten in the morning. It was a short jump to O’Hare Airport in wintry Chicago and a rather enjoyable 5-hour layover spent lounging around and dining for free at the United Club (open to all international passengers flying business class).
At four that afternoon, we hopped on an ANA 777 for a 13-hour flight that took us over the snow-covered infinity of Alberta at night (north of Edmonton), where the landscape was dotted with thousands of flickering gas wells and carnival bright processing plants that looked like tiny towns surrounded by signal beacons. The high plains were all lit up, and yet there was nobody home. No vehicles or churches. Just raw power. It was a very surreal and unexpected sight, throbbing relentlessly in the milky moonlight glow.
Bakken Natural Gas fields at night
We followed the west coast of Alaska up to Anchorage and then swung south and flew down along the frozen coast of Russia. Inna’s parents were somewhere fairly nearby, off to our west, sitting down to dinner in frozen Khabarovsk.
We landed in Tokyo at nine in the evening a day later, having crossed the International Date Line between the U.S and Russia in the Bering Sea.
We were only at Haneda Airport for about two hours, but they kept us hopping the whole time.
International flights land in Terminal 2. We got off our plane and were herded up and down a series of stairs and empty hallways where smiling Japanese airline employees merrily waved us forward like we were lost children. We were then loaded onto a sardine can, standing room only bus for a bumpy ride from one end of Terminal 2 to the other, weaving through a vast parking lot of idle, white and blue ANA jumbo jets, looming above the runway road like ghostly monuments. Then it was back into Terminal 2 where we stumbled in a dazed travel fog up and down several escalators that led us along a winding route to a solitary customs checkpoint with a stand and salute metal detector.
Once cleared, it was back down to the bus and another stalag-like drive to our plane that was waiting for us on the tarmac in the cold, wintry night. We climbed a glowing tube-enshrouded stairway up to the welcoming embrace of our smiling and bowing stewardesses, where Japanese courtesy and efficiency reigned supreme as always.
The final leg to Sydney lasted twelve hours. There was a gourmet dinner soon after taking off and a tasty breakfast before we landed. In between, there was a Xanax induced deep sleep while we flew south over the Pacific Ocean, Guam, and New Guinea. We could have been on our way to the friggin moon for all I knew.
Outside Sydney Airport
On the flight from Chicago to Tokyo, I ate dinner, watched a movie, and popped a Xanax. I slept like a walrus for about six blessed hours. And I repeated the same routine on the flight to Sydney. So, I ended up getting twelve hours of sleep and never experienced any jet lag after our arrival in Australia. Sleep is the key.
The Business Class seat reclines into a horizontal position and fits snugly into the padded platform in front (where the pillow and blanket are seen above in the photo), thus creating a bed a bit longer than 6 feet.
The Japanese are very fond of using big-eared, brightly-colored, animal characters with squeaky voices in public service videos and on informational signs when they want to convey instructions—don’t litter, buckle your seat belt, be nice, stay in your lane—and it gives everything a vaguely cartoonish quality. You can’t help but smile at the silliness of the whole effort.
And when you travel all the way from Maryland to Australia, pretty much non-stop around the planet earth, imaginary space pussies might just be the only thing standing between you and the Twilight Zone.
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