mc10

Hello,
Just starting to plan a trip to Australia and possibly to New Zealand in the latter half of November. I know that Auckland can be a stopover on a flight from LAX to Sydney, but I don't know how long the flights are. I was considering in staying in Auckland for a few days if it breaks up the long flight into 2 shorter ones. Is it worth it? Can anyone help answer this?

Thanks!

Neil_Oz

From memory LAX-SYD is about 14 hours, but check the airline's online schedules. Visit NZ by all means, but not for that reason - I haven't checked the flight times but imagine that the time saving would be small and not in itself a reason to break your flight.

mjs

Agree with Neil. A stop in Auckland probably saves you a few hours at best.

Neil_Oz

mc10, as mentioned, the airlines can certainly help answer your question, as they helpfully supply flight times on their websites. Air New Zealand gives the following nonstop flight times:
LAX-AKL 12:45
AKL-SYD 3:30
Total 16:15

vs
LAX-SYD 14:35

Add to this the extra time spent sitting in the cabin before departure and after touchdown, plus stuffing around in the terminal, by breaking your journey; and the fact that you only spend an extra 1:50 in the air by flying LAX-SYD direct and it looks like a no-brainer to me.

pb_and_j

Fiji and Honolulu are possibilities for stopovers also. But if you're not interested in those destinations it's not really worth your time.
I'm planning on a 4 day stopover in Fiji because I really want to go there and it sounds like a perfect place to just relax and get over jet lag.

simpsonc510

If memory serves me correctly, part of the reason for the 14+ hour flight is that planes can't land in SYD before 6am. Am I right? The LAX-SYD flights leave late at night so that they don't arrive before 6.

I've done the FIJI stopover for a few days and recommend it. This time, I'm doing the Cook Islands and Tahiti and Bora Bora as my stopovers (I'm leaving next Thursday for OZ).

New Zealand is worthy of more than just a few days stopover. We did a week on just the north island a few years ago. We need to do the same on the south island sometime in the future.

Enjoy your trip!

mc10

Thanks everybody for the info! As mentioned, I'm just starting to look into this and thought that I might be able to get a taste of New Zealand as I'm flying all the way out there, but it appears that there is so much to see and do that I might just concentrate on one country and hopefully make it out there to visit the other country later. I'll also look into the Fiji layover. I just can't decide which country to visit first! Decisions, decisions . . . Thanks again everybody. I'm sure I'll be posting again soon as I start booking our travel plans.

RalphR

In my opinion a stopover is never worth the extra hassle and expense if the idea is just to save a few extra hours sitting on a plane. If the idea is to see a different place (e.g., NZ), then you need to consider whether or not the time you do spend there does the place any justice and whether it might be better to use that time seeing the ultimate destination, in this case Australia. For example a 2 day stopover in Auckland on a 2 week trip to Australia, would not be time well spent, in my book.

Neil_Oz

simpsonc510 - you're right - Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport is very central and has operated to a 2300-0700 curfew for a long time. Proposals for a second airport have been floating around for the last 30 years, to no effect. Such is Sydney's suburban sprawl that the mooted locations just keep getting further and further away, and some suggestions are ludicrously distant. In fact it's reached the stage that Canberra (290 km by road from Sydney) has volunteered itself - it would be one way to get a very fast train to Sydney.

Federal and state governments, nervous about the electoral backlash that aircraft noise generates, occasionally take this one out of the "too hard" basket and then put it back in. Expect nothing to change.