Complex route or compound route. Composite route. How to buy air tickets on a complex route. Consider flights from different cities. The main low-cost carrier of the country - Pobeda

Now let's look at one rather simple, but very rare, way to save money. It is so primitive that it is even strange that it is almost never mentioned anywhere. So now we will try to fill this gap and tell you what a “complex route” is (or, as it is often called a “composite route”) andhow you can save money with itand to whom it suits.

Savings of 25,000 rubles!

To begin with, I’ll tell you exactly how we stumbled upon this very “difficult route”, and after reading it, it will immediately become clear to you how you personally can save on air tickets!

So, it all started with the fact that we needed to find and buy air tickets to the United States, and, preferably, as cheaply as possible.

What was the main difficulty? We had to visit New York and California, which meant that on top of the high price tag for a transatlantic flight, we would have to add money for an expensive domestic flight. There were not many options:

Chelyabinsk - New York - Chelyabinsk plus New York - Los Angeles - New York. Price: 120,000 rubles
Chelyabinsk - Los Angeles - Chelyabinsk, without visiting New York. Price: 90,000 rubles, with New York - not real 132-136,000 rubles.
Chelyabinsk - Moscow - Chelyabinsk (14 thousand) plus Moscow - Los Angeles - Moscow, performed by the Germans or Austrians. Price: 70,000 rubles. If you also add a round-trip flight from Los Angeles to New York - RUB 115,000

As I did not dig forums and sites of search engines, I could not find anything more profitable. The cheapest option came out with a flight from Russia to Los Angeles for 70 thousand, with 1-2 transfers, and without visiting New York. As a result, we began to lean towards the idea of throwing New York out of the current trip altogether and visiting it some other time.

I was already, it was the case, a little depressed that I would die, and I would not see New York, when suddenly, by chance, in the Google Flights service (not the most convenient, but quite fast metasearch engine), I came across the button "Difficult route".

What is a difficult route?

Here we need to make a short digression about what the “Difficult route” is:

One way flight when we fly from point A to point B.
Round-trip flight- in this case, we fly from point A to point B, and then back to point A.
Difficult route- we can choose as many flights as we need, and we are also free to handle the necessary points of departure / arrival, as our heart desires.

A small example: a flight from Chelyabinsk to Ho Chi Minh City, the next flight will add Bangkok - Singapore, and from Singapore we will fly back to Russia, but not to Chelyabinsk, but to Ufa. And such, in the literal sense, a difficult route can be bought with one ticket! Flight of fancy is not limited.

What will happen in our case?

It turned out that if you specify Chelyabinsk - New York as a route, and then Los Angeles - Chelyabinsk, then you can fly away for 79 thousand, and if you change places between Los Angeles and New York, then the price becomes already 74 thousand!

It remains only to pay extra for the flight Los Angeles - New York one way (or vice versa) 20 thousand to get the final price of all transfers of 94 thousand, which cheaper by 20-22 thousand the most profitable, but not very convenient flight performed by Europeans!

Why is the difficult route so profitable?

The savings here are formed because of this - when we choose a round-trip flight, no matter how far we travel during the journey from the point of our initial arrival, we will in any case have to return to the same initial point in order to fly back.

And any transfer costs money and time.

Properly choosing tickets for a difficult route, you won’t have to spend money on a transfer to the place of departure, and it saves a lot of time. So this is the rarest way to save, which not only saves money and time, but also increases comfort.

The only point to pay attention to- all points of your complex route must be served either by one airline or by airlines of the same alliance.

Despite the fact that a very specific and rather specific example was considered here (due to rather expensive flights within the United States), with the right route, this method can be used everywhere, both when traveling in Europe, and in Asia with Africa (well, in Russia, of course, especially since the prices for domestic flights are the same as in the USA).

In what cases will it not be possible to save money with the help of a "difficult route"?

In some cases, a complex route can still not be applied:

1. If you are a fan of flying to some city, sitting there without getting out for 3 weeks, and then flying back home. In this case, naturally, a complex route will not help you.
2. If in your route between settlements it is more expedient to move not sequentially (i.e., you flew to point A, went from it to B, from there swam to C, etc.), but radially (arrived to point A and from there you make sorties there -back to B, C, D, etc.).
3. If you plan to travel around a small region and are not going to travel far from the city of arrival. For example, if you decide to see Bavaria, then having arrived in Munich, it will be more expedient to fly from Munich, and not from Frankfurt am Main.
4. If during the journey you climbed into such a jungle where neither planes fly nor ships sail. In this case, there are big doubts that the search engine will be able to pick up any tickets for you.

In all other cases, this method can be used and decently save.

Algorithm for buying an air ticket on a complex route?

Here are the search results. If you like something, click on “Buy for …..” to start the standard ticket purchase procedure. In terms of cheapness, the example is not entirely successful, I just needed to demonstrate how to look for tickets on a difficult route.

Now you know how easy it is to find and buy tickets with a complex route, as well as how to search so that a “complex route” is more profitable than simple round-trip tickets.

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Today I will share with you how and where you can buy air tickets on a complex / composite route on the Internet. Difficult - this is not because it is difficult to do, but because the cities of departures are different. For example, as I mentioned in the last article, let's look at this example of a flight today:

Moscow-Vienna-Barcelona-Moscow

Those. you fly from Moscow to Vienna, and return to Moscow from another city - from Barcelona. And, accordingly, you cannot set the Moscow-Vienna-Moscow route in the search engine, as it would be convenient to do on the skyscanner.

For a clear example of the work of the search engine, which will be discussed today, I will omit the Vienna-Barcelona domestic flight and show only in screenshots how a simple ticket search scheme works on a complex route with a flight to one city and a return from another, i.e. with a flight to Vienna and a return from Barcelona in our example.

So, what search service helps us with this? Where can I find and buy tickets for compound routes? Introducing search engine today

This is what its interface looks like. Let's start to analyze the work of airsales, friends. I will not dwell on the fact that on this search engine, of course, you can search for tickets on the usual routes, i.e., THERE AND BACK, for example, Moscow-Hamburg-Moscow.

But today we are interested in a composite route. So, we enter the necessary cities, select the dates of flights on the calendar, note the number of adults (take 1 for example).

We have the following flight data:

By the way, you can also add an internal flight Vienna-Barcelona here. You can add, in principle, several routes, each time using the "Add more flight" button, but I do not advise, because. the total amount for tickets will shock you)) I advise you to look for domestic flights in other ways, using low-cost websites that are not always displayed by search engines. But today we are not talking about them, so we will limit ourselves to two flights.

I’ll tell you about the future for the kids: if you are flying with the whole family, which can be immediately noted in the search engine, for example, two adults and a child. And choose how many children you have from 2 to 12 years old and the number of babies under 2 years old.

Also select the flight class: ECONOMY or BUSINESS and click FIND TICKETS:

By clicking DETAILS, we can find out the details:

Firstly, the transfer on the way back takes place in Düsseldorf
Secondly, the docking is long and overnight. We see that the arrival in Dusseldorf is at 22:40, and the flight to Moscow the next day at 08:50.

That is, choosing such a flight, you will have to spend the night in Dusseldorf, which is not very convenient. It's one thing if the docking lasted during the day, you could walk around the city and fly away in the evening. But in our case, the docking is night, so pay attention to that.

So, this cheap option is not suitable, however, like the next one below with a connection already in Vienna, but also at night.

We go further and look at the next option, also with a change in Vienna, but not at night and not so long. Arrival in Vienna at 16:15 and departure at 20:40. Docking lasts 4 hours 25 minutes. I will say right away - this is also inconvenient, because. there is a lot of time to walk around Duty Free, but not enough time to go out into the city. And besides, if you wanted to leave the airport and walk around the city, then you would have to re-check in for the flight, and this takes time.

As a result, after quickly reviewing several options, I personally liked this one with a transfer in Zurich (more or less long and daily) - there will be time to stroll around Zurich. Look: arrival in Zurich is also at 11:40, but departure is at 21:00. The docking lasts 9 hours and 20 minutes, which already seems interesting

I just showed you how to choose flights with transfers. Let's say you don't want to fly with a transfer and you are willing to pay more, but fly only direct flights. In this case, check the box only for direct flights. And we see that the cost of direct flights is much more expensive - 22,847 rubles. Shown in the screenshot:

On the search service, you can sort by many criteria, for example:

Specify the maximum price you are willing to pay for a ticket
What time is convenient for you to fly. Personally, I usually like to fly out of Moscow in the morning, so as not to lose the whole first day, but to use it productively on a trip, and I like to fly back in the evening or even at night. Therefore, I moved the time slider here and set the flight from Moscow to Vienna before 12 noon, and back from Barcelona to Moscow after 9 pm
You can also specify not only the time of departure, but also the time of arrival in the city
You can mark the duration of transfers if you are considering flights with transfers, as we looked at a little earlier. For example, if you were interested in a transfer of no more than 3 hours, the search engine would no longer offer you flights with those long night connections that I showed you in the screenshots above

I display the sorting options in the picture below. For example, when you just entered the parameters you are interested in regarding the time of departure, then the flights have already significantly decreased and in fact there are only 3 left when you fly from Moscow in the morning, and from Barcelona at night with direct flights:

And these are not all criteria. You can also select the alliances that include the airlines if you have any special preferences, and the airlines themselves. To select specific airlines, you must first uncheck the box "ALL" and then check the box next to each airline you are interested in:

Using the example of the following screenshot, I will show that you can still choose payment methods and airports of departures, arrivals, transfers:

I also like that the search service has one very cool option - searching for cheap flights on the map. This feature is also available on the main page of the site below under the search form:

By clicking on VIEW PRICES ON THE MAP, before the world map with airfare prices opens, you will be asked to learn how to work with the map. Having agreed, they will show you step by step how to work with the map. I recommend that it takes no more than a minute.

Therefore, I will not dwell on working with the map in detail. Experiment right now below and you will find out where, for example, it is cheapest to fly

On the main page of the site there is an opportunity to subscribe to the newsletter of special offers. Then you will be aware of discounts on air tickets. The site has a lot of useful and interesting information for travelers.

Study, friends, and use it to your health, especially since it provides an excellent service to buy tickets on a compound route, which I told you about today.

Indeed, it is often more profitable to buy tickets in this way than separately. BUT not always! Therefore, I strongly recommend comparing 2 options: here is such a composite route and the search for one-way tickets, i.e. in our case, you will also need to check the prices for the flight, first on the Moscow-Vienna route, and then also find out the prices for a one-way ticket from Barcelona to Moscow and add the two amounts received - whether it would be more profitable to buy tickets separately or the entire compound route. It might be cheaper!

Friends, I tried to acquaint you in detail with the function of the compound route on the service and I hope that this post will be useful to you. Share your impressions in the comments, I would also be interested to know if you have already used this search engine before. After all, it is considered number 1 in Russia, although I personally prefer skyscanner. As they say - the taste and color

In the future, I will record another video tutorial on working with the search service and show in more detail how to search and buy cheap plane tickets.

"Aviation tips from the site" will share with you a few secrets on how to make a round-the-world trip at minimal cost, and show how easy it is to do it with the help of special services.

Let's say you're planning a week-long European trip and you're on a tight schedule: you don't want to waste time traveling by bus or train. You need to get as quickly as possible, for example, from Spain to Germany. Obviously, this can only be done by plane. But how to correctly lay out a route and at the same time not overpay for air tickets if your trip, for example, looks like this: Moscow-Madrid-Porto-Cologne-Moscow?
There are several types of routes:

Easy route. For example, Moscow-Prague-Moscow. Flights can be both direct and with connections in other cities. If you are planning a transit for less than a day, then you can use the ticket search form on the main page.
Composite route. For example, Moscow-Madrid-Porto-Cologne-Moscow. Such a route is easy to compose from the search bar by clicking on "Complicated route".
open jaw. For example, Moscow-Larnaca-Brussels-Barcelona-Moscow-St. Petersburg. Note that the start and end points are different. Sometimes these routes are called "forks", and sometimes they are more profitable than if you returned to the point of departure. You can compose an open jaw in the same way as any complex route.

A complex route can be composed in several ways:

1. Check the price separately for each flight segment. For a complete picture with the best dates and times for vacations, go to.

Select your destination city and indicate that you need a one-way ticket.

We hide the selection window and see that it is most profitable to fly from Moscow to Paris for 2.4 thousand rubles in May and October.

Download the free flight search app now!

The best prices in the app.
Tickets are always at hand!

Great start to the journey, right?

2. Make a complex route right away. On the site's flight search page, click on "Complex Route" and select all points of departure and arrival, as well as dates.

In the same window, you can check the price for the open jaw route when the first and last points are different.

Sometimes the price difference can be significant, so it's worth checking out these itinerary options.

Judging by the results, it is more profitable to return from a trip to Moscow, and not to St. Petersburg.

Many have noticed that in flight the plane performs more than a dozen turns, and often in different directions. There is a popular opinion among passengers that course changes are related to the controller's commands and are intended to prevent aircraft collisions, but this is not entirely true. When flying outside the aerodrome area, in the absolute majority of cases, this task is performed by setting different altitudes and speeds for a particular flight. A natural question arises, why not fly in a straight line with minimal maneuvering during takeoff and landing? The fact is that in the sky, as well as on earth, there are roads - airways, whose main task is to streamline the flow of aircraft and achieve the most efficient use of airspace. In this article we will tell you why airways are needed, how flight route specific flight, what is the role of the pilot and dispatcher in this process, why the same flight can be operated on completely different routes on different days.

Flight on the shortest route.

Obviously, the most profitable route is the so-called great circle is the shortest distance between two points on the earth's surface. On the map, the great circle looks like an arcuate line, which is due to the fact that the map is a projection of a spherical earth onto a plane.

The shortest distance is Moscow — Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Of course, flying in a straight line from point A to point B is faster and more economical than flying along a "broken" airway. However, until recently, flying along such a trajectory was almost impossible to perform, which was due to the capabilities of navigation equipment. In addition, if all aircraft were flying on erratic trajectories, at the current stage of development of air traffic control systems, this would lead to the inability to "split" all these aircraft in the air. There are also a wide variety of restricted and restricted areas that cannot be flown through.

Traditional navigation.

Historically, a flight route consists of a sequence of so-called intermediate turning points And " lags"(from English leg) - sections between them.

A network of air routes over Moscow.

At the dawn of aviation, the need to perform en-route flight was associated solely with the performance of navigational tasks. The basic method of navigation is the flight from one characteristic landmark to another, of course, this method is applicable under the condition of visibility of the earth, i.e. in visual weather conditions. By the way, visual navigation is still actively used in "small aircraft".

With the development of aviation, it became necessary to carry out flights in the absence of visibility of the earth's surface, i.e. instrumentation only. Thus, a method of navigation called radio navigation. The essence of this method is that radio stations were installed at certain points on the route, the crew on board determined the direction to the radio station and flew to it. Over time, a device called automatic radio compass (ARC), which allows you to determine the direction to the radio station with high accuracy. The radio stations themselves began to be called "drive" or in English NDB(non-directional beacon). The range of such transmitters is about 250 kilometers, which necessitated the creation of a fairly extensive network of stations. Over time, more advanced and accurate radio beacons appeared. VOR with a range of up to 350 kilometers. It is these distances that determine the length of the route section, while it must be understood that it is possible to maintain the direction not only by flying to the radio station, but also from the radio station.

Driving radio station and air routes.

Ground-based navigation methods are widely used in civil aviation, but today the main method of navigation is. The flight is still carried out from point to point, but now they are only a conventional name and geographical coordinates, the installation of any ground facilities is no longer required.

Route formation.

So, how is the flight route of a particular flight formed, along which the plane will eventually fly. Below we will describe how this happens in major airlines.

Any serious carrier has an air navigation department, which, from the existing network of points and routes, forms several route options for each flight, usually 5-10 routes. These routes are stored in the airline's database and loaded into the aircraft's on-board navigation systems, they are called "company routes".

Variant of the route Vnukovo - St. Petersburg.

It is engaged in the preparation of a specific flight already on the day of departure flight dispatcher, it is this specialist who chooses the best route, evaluating all the restrictions on the route and meteorological conditions. It often turns out that flying along a longer route is much more profitable due to different wind speeds and directions in different areas. The selected route is approved and transmitted to the air traffic services, i.e. dispatchers.

Thus, the pilots receive a ready flight route, in accordance with which the flight will be operated. During the flight, changes can be made to the route, for example, if possible, the controller can allow the so-called "straightening", i.e. exclude one or more waypoints from the route. In addition, by decision of the commander, dangerous weather phenomena, usually thunderstorms, can be bypassed.

Actual track. Sheremetyevo - St. Petersburg.

As already mentioned, the flight route of an aircraft consists of a sequence of points and tracks, below we will give a real route from Vnukovo Airport to St. Petersburg, this is how the pilot and dispatcher see it.

UUWW UM4D UM DCT AR DCT OBELU B239 AJ R369 DB B964 LUKIR LUKI1A ULLI

UUWW– international code of Vnukovo airfield
UM4D– Departure Route Identifier (SID)
UM- driving radio station "Ivanovskoye"
DCT- "right on"
AR- driving radio station "Buzharovo"
DCT- "right on"
OBELU- point designation
B239- route designation
AJ- drive radio station "Staritsa"
R369- route designation
D.B.- drive radio station "Pochinok"
LUKIR- point designation
LUKI1A– arrival route designator (STAR)
ULLI- international code of Pulkovo airfield

The designation of the route already includes a sequence of points, the name of the point or the drive radio station itself is indicated in the route when changing the route. Reduction DCT(direct to) is used in cases where it is not possible to fly on the route, or the planning of off-piste flights is allowed by the air traffic services authority.

As you can see, when forming the route, as well as 50 years ago, drive radio stations are used, however, along with them, unmarked navigation points are also used.

In the process of preparing for the flight, the pilot enters the route into the onboard navigation computer in the form of a sequence of points. The data of each point (name, coordinates, call signs) is already contained in the onboard database. If the carrier uses pre-planned routes company routes, the pilot only needs to select a route index, such as "UUWWULLI01". It is easy to guess that UUWW is the airport of departure (Vnukovo), and ULLI is the airport of destination (Pulkovo), 01 is the serial number of the route option.

On-board navigation computer (FMS) control panel.

Future.

Already today, a number of European states are introducing in their airspace the concept Free Route Airspace, the essence of which is that instead of airways, only information about navigation points is published. Flight planning is carried out along any route passing through the published points, while it is enough to select only two points - entry and exit from the zone.

Another promising development of the organization Eurocontrol- the main air traffic services authority in Europe - the concept Single European Sky, i.e. "single European sky", its essence lies in the abolition of the boundaries between the various sectors of air traffic control in terms of route planning, so it will be possible to fly through the entire European region in a straight line.

Of course, I guessed that the topic of buying cheap air tickets is inexhaustible. But I did not expect that it would be divided into so many different subtopics. At first I wanted to write one post, then I realized that I would get confused myself, and even those who would read - even more so.)))
Today we got to the most interesting topic - difficult routes and one ticket for the whole trip - Multi destination booking .

Once upon a time, I read Sasha Simo's travel stories and read from him that some airlines issue a so-called "round-the-world" ticket, with which you can fly around the world, making stops in different countries at different times.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and now we do not need either the round-the-world ticket itself (although such an option exists), or the ticket office to buy tickets.
We can plan any trip ourselves and buy tickets for all flights, sitting at home near the computer.

I will say more, with independent planning and independent purchase of tickets, our trip will be much cheaper.

What you need to know when searching for tickets on a complex route.

1. Multi destinations booking or a ticket for a complex route - what is it?

Multi destination booking or a ticket for a complex route is a ticket for complex routes consisting of several different points (more than 2).

The simplest version of such a ticket is a ticket.

But you can buy one ticket for a much larger number of flights.

2. When do we need a ticket for a complex route?

If you are planning a trip for which you need not just a round-trip ticket, but several tickets for separate flights "there" - you should check out the option of buying a single ticket for a complex route.

For example, for the first time we ourselves used the option of buying such tickets when we were planning ours. We then had plans to visit 6 countries on this continent, and, accordingly, a lot of domestic flights. I wanted to somehow minimize the cost of these flights, so I began to look for different options, how to put as many flights as possible into one ticket.
As a result, then we bought multi-tickets on difficult routes: Cusco (Peru) - La Paz (Bolivia), La Paz - Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Santa Cruz - Concepción (Paraguay) and the second: Concepción (Paraguay) - Bogota (Colombia) , Bogota - Lima (Peru).

3. How long are the stops between flights?

Theoretically, stops can be of any length. But it should be borne in mind that in the event of a stop that fits the definitions or, the ticket price may not change much. Longer stops will increase the cost of the ticket (but usually not much, as it turns out). Also, it is worth taking into account that now the maximum period for which you can buy a flight somewhere in advance is limited to a year in advance.

4. The basic rule for buying a single ticket.

The basic rule for buying a single air ticket is that one airline or different airlines, but included in one air alliance, must fly between the airports of your route.

For example, in the case of buying tickets for South America described above, I could not combine all these flights into one ticket, because the Cusco-La Paz and La Paz _ Santa Cruz - Concepcio flights were operated by some Bolivian company, and the Concepcion flights - Bogota and Bogota - Lima - LAN airline.
By the way, if I had already made a travel plan when buying tickets to Peru and knew that I would fly further by LAN and around South America, too, I could add these flights to the Tel Aviv - Lima ticket and back. It would have been even cheaper.

5. Where can I find the cheapest tickets for a difficult route?

If one airline flies between all points of your route, the best option is to buy such a ticket on the website of the airline itself.
Firstly, on the websites of many airlines now there is an option "complex route" or Multiple Destinations or "compound route".
If there is no such option on the site, then you can write or call the airline.

If planes of different airlines (but members of the same alliance) fly between the points you have chosen, then we are looking for options on.

It's always worth checking out a few - you can get not only different prices, but also different flight options.

If you are not limited by any specific dates and periods of stay in a particular place, check the prices for each segment of your flight using. Sometimes by shifting the dates of different flights by a day or two, you can even reduce the price of a ticket for a multiple route even more.

10. In case of a complex route for different tickets - lay at least a day between flights

Sometimes it turns out that in the case of a complex route, some of its parts cannot be tied to a single ticket - only some very local airlines fly on those sections. Or, many one-way flights are cheaper to buy from low-cost companies (here you always need to check the baggage rules). In this case, be sure to lay a day between flights, or better - several days.

In the event that for any reason your flight is delayed or simply canceled (which happened to us in Colombia and Peru), you are solely responsible for your other flights. And if you start your journey in Europe, deciding to fly there by low-cost, and then across the ocean and back...? Or, on the contrary, you are stuck somewhere in the darkness, and as a result, you are late for all your flights across the ocean back home.
Remember, if you do not fly some segment of the ticket, all subsequent flights will be canceled immediately.

In general, everything should always be very carefully checked and compared.