Post by Gerrit Goedecke

Roger Cook was thinking about Western Australia. I was thinking about my next boarding pass. A few years ago, he told me with genuine enthusiasm that Perth would soon have a direct flight to Rome. The way he framed it, this was particularly good news for me. And from a Western Australian perspective, it absolutely was. Better direct links to Europe mean more visitors, more choice and a city that feels a little less distant from the rest of the world. He was looking at the wider opportunity for the state. My own perspective was rather narrower. I was regularly travelling between Perth and Germany. Rome was closer, certainly. But it was still not where I needed to go, which meant another flight. Once a connection is unavoidable, changing planes in Rome, London or the Middle East makes less difference than the phrase “direct to Europe” might suggest. I still think about that conversation whenever I hear about flights approaching twenty hours without a stop. For someone travelling to the destination on the ticket, that can be transformative. For someone continuing elsewhere, twenty hours before the connection is a slightly different sales proposition. Roger Cook and I were not really disagreeing. He was measuring what the route could do for Western Australia. I was measuring the full journey to my actual destination. Different perspectives on the same route. Would you rather spend twenty hours on one aircraft, or break the journey somewhere along the way? #WesternAustralia #Aviation #Travel