This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2456.
Connect over connecting flights and flying habits in English.
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Hello, Michelle. How's it going today? Good, Lindsay.
Good. How are you? Really good. Really good.
What are we getting into? Are we talking about travel today?
Yes, we are in the summer. And guys, I'm sure a lot of you are taking summer trips this summer.
How many times can I say summer? So we are going to be talking about flying.
But Lindsay, what is the hardest? I mean, you've done so much traveling.
What would you say is the hardest long haul flight you've ever had?
Oh, Michelle, I've had some tough ones when you go to Asia, right?
So a couple of tough ones when we did our urban immersion adventure in Tokyo were really hard.
I did 12 hours in the Istanbul airport, which is actually kind of a cool place to spend 12 hours.
It's the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa.
And so just sitting there and people watching, but the hardest one for me was going to Cambodia.
I think I had three legs on that. It was, I think it was Boston to LA to China.
I think it was Shanghai to Cambodia. It was wild.
Yeah. It was insane. And just like airport to airport and you arrive and you are just... You're a mess, right?
Yeah. That's hard. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, I don't think I've ever had anything like that.
I mean... When I went to India, we did a layover in Dubai.
But I mean, I think that's like pretty typical, just a few hours.
So nothing too crazy. Of course, it was exhausting, but nothing.
What about your trip to Japan? Because you went to Japan.
Did you have a direct flight New York to Tokyo?
Yes, I did. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are long flights, but that, but yeah, not with too many, nothing, nothing crazy.
Problem is the layovers that just kill you.
It's, it's rough. It's rough. Yes, exactly.
And now like with air travel being a little wonky right now, you know, sometimes with the layovers, then you don't know if it's actually happening or I don't know, that can be very stressful or, or if there's a delay and you're running with, I know that's happened to my brother where the It's been such a delay and then he misses the flight he was supposed to catch.
It's true. Or you board the flight. This happened to me last month.
You board the flight. It's 1030. The flight was supposed to go at 730.
You're on the flight waiting for an hour and the pilot never shows up.
And then the pilot times out, the crew times out.
So you have to get off and the flight gets delayed or canceled until the next day.
That happened to me just a month ago. If you fly enough, you get these crazy stories, right?
It's insane. That's why we're talking about this today for our listeners.
It really is a connection topic, Michelle.
Yes, absolutely. Everybody can share their flight stories, right?
So we actually got... We're talking about this because we got two listener questions on YouTube and we're going to kind of combine them today and talk about flying in general.
I mean, this is a great topic. I mean, especially for our listeners.
We know you guys are, you know, global travelers.
You know, we like to move around. So maybe we'll do that.
Follow ups or a little series on this. We'll have to see how it goes.
We'll see what comes out of this. But so we have two questions.
So the first one we want to shout out is they're both from YouTube.
Ardalan Bookart. So Ardalan Bookart 24. And it says, can you talk about direct flight, connecting flights? and everything related to the airport and so yeah great question and lindsay do you want to read the next one yeah so the next question also from youtube from sanaz mamoudi 8758 and they said hi aubrey and lindsay thank you for your amazing podcast i have a question about a red eye flight.
So what I think they're asking what is a red eye flight?
Can you make a video about it? Thanks a lot.
Sanaz from Iran. Love it. Love it. Yeah, thank you to both of you.
We really appreciate these questions. Thanks for engaging with us.
YouTube is another great place where you can ask your questions.
So yeah, we've talked about flights on the show before.
But A while ago, and we want to refresh ourselves and our audience's memories.
So we are going to today get into these logistical words about flying.
And we're also going to ask conversation questions that can help build connection around this topic.
I love that. It's not just about definitions of terms.
It's about what questions do we ask using these terms, right, Michelle?
Right. Yep, exactly. So we're going to kind of ask each other questions after each term that we teach.
So the first one, direct flight or nonstop sometimes we say.
So Lindsay, you were asking me that just a second ago about Japan.
You said, did you go, did you have a direct flight?
So what does that mean? Yeah, it just means literally there are no stops.
And for me, this is a criteria these days when I fly, at least within the US, I don't do layovers.
I just refuse to do layovers. It's dangerous these days, Michelle, with what happened with the Newark airport.
I don't know if that's been ironed out yet.
So I don't know. I mean, Michelle, what about you?
Do you also try to take direct flights or are you open to layovers?
I really try for the direct. Definitely when I'm online looking, I try and just hit it where I'm only looking at direct.
And sometimes, oh gosh, do you ever look and you see, oh wow, that's a better price than I would like to pay.
And it's like a 12-hour layover. No, you'd have to fly all around the country.
Yeah, they're going to send me to like Akron, Ohio for a 12-hour layover, right?
Yeah, so I was like, no, we don't need it.
We don't want that. So anyway, but you might say, I only want to take a direct flight.
It's too exhausting to fly with a layover.
Yeah, with a layover. Whoops. So yeah, that was the question.
So that is a really good conversation question, right, Lindsay?
Do you try to take direct flights or do you usually take connecting flights?
Whatever, but asking about it. It's a great topic.
And I think a lot of people that fly often have rules, right?
They have their own standards. And so they might say, I might ask someone, do you do layovers?
And someone might say, no, I don't do layovers, especially in the winter in the US, flying into Denver, flying to the East Coast.
It's too dangerous with snow and ice delays, right?
Or I don't do the last flight out in the evening because those are the ones that are most likely to get delayed for thunderstorms in the summer.
Flight crew will time out, things like that.
So what do you do means what do you tolerate?
What are your standards? What are you willing to do?
What do you do? Right. And that just gives me, I mean, that was a, I mean, Lindsay, you've been, first of all, you've been throwing out some awesome vocab today.
I've been writing at the ironed out and criteria.
Timed out. Timed out. Yeah. Timed out. Wait, but what, what, oh.
What you just said, we could do a whole episode on this.
I don't do blank. That's a great one. Do you do this?
I don't do that, right? Oh my gosh, guys, hit the follow button right now.
It's a fantastic way to describe what you tolerate, what you allow, what your standards are for anything in your life, any food you eat, things you accept, things you don't accept.
Yeah. All right. I'm excited to plan that one.
Let's move on to the next one. If you're not doing a direct flight, you are usually doing a connecting flight.
So, Lindsay, I took a quick jot down of this because earlier you mentioned legs.
Yes. I think you said that your flight had three or four legs.
What in the world? I know, it sounds like a human being, right?
It sounds like a human being, no. So just sections of your journey, right?
So when we flew, we flew to Brussels, we had a leg, one leg from Denver to Frankfurt and the other leg, I don't know if it was Munich or Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Brussels, right?
So those are two legs. okay right right exactly so yeah basically you stop at another airport and then take a connecting flight to your destination so the connecting flight is the one that Would you say that that more typically kind of describes the second flight?
Yeah, the connecting flight. I would say the second flight.
Yeah, exactly. So what could be an example of that?
Okay, so we could say, I have a connecting flight I need to catch.
Would you mind if I got off ahead of you?
Oh, this is opening a whole topic, Michelle.
Yeah. It definitely is. And that's another topic we can get to another time.
But that does happen where everybody's... Well, sometimes they tell you.
They'll say, oh, if you have a connecting flight, get off first, right?
Yes. But yeah, that can be stressful. Yeah.
My craziest flight story was last summer when we came back from Slovenia.
Listen to this, Michelle. It's insane. So we were leaving Venice.
So we went to Venice for a day and we had to go to Munich for the first leg and then back to Denver. our flight in munich was boarding when we were getting on our flight in slow in venice can you imagine that so like literally and so we're like there's no way we're gonna make it and then we we arrived in in munich and i've never i thought my heart was gonna pound explode out of my chest we sprinted across the munich airport luckily everything was very smooth And we got on.
How is that possible? We got on. We got on.
These international flights take forever to board.
They take like an hour 15 to board. And somehow we made it.
Yeah, we made it. That's wild. Wait, so you, how long is that flight?
The flight is about an hour, about an hour, maybe a little less, 45 minutes from Venice to Munich.
And then, wow, good for you. It was wild.
So this whole thing, I mean, that was an exceptional scenario, but one thing we run into a lot.
We don't recommend that. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't our fault.
It was delays, delays. But do you ever wonder if you have enough time?
That's something I struggle with when I have a connecting flight.
Do I have enough time for that layover in that airport?
Because some airports are more efficient than others, right?
Or they're bigger. So you might have to take a, you know, something in between a terminal.
I mean, yeah. Yeah. You always kind of have to make, it's kind of a gamble, right?
When you're doing this, you're like, oh, will I be able to make it?
And no, it's probably fine. And it kind of depends on how efficient that airport is, how many other flights are coming in that day.
Michelle, there's so much, this could be like 10 episodes, but let's keep going.
Let's keep going. Okay. So, well, that's funny because, wait, did you already see that this was my question?
Oh, I actually did not see that. This is a great connection question.
Here it is. This is what Michelle could have asked me just now.
Have you ever had to run to catch a flight?
And then everyone has their stories, right?
Their airport war stories, right? As we say, we have a story and people love to tell those stories, right?
Because they're so dramatic to them. They are.
Good connection moments. Yes. I actually remember this isn't about flights, but also dealing with Venice.
Um, we were taking, we were going to be taking a train who I forget, uh, to where else, uh, but it was the next trade wasn't until maybe the next day.
And we were trying to get on, um, what is it called?
The, the cars, the, The overnight train?
No, no, no, no. In Venice. Oh, the gondolas.
No, no, not the gondolas. The water taxis?
Yeah, the water taxi, but there's a name for it.
I can't think of it. I don't know. So we were trying to get on and we were also doing, it sounded, that reminded me of your story about the heart through the chest.
We were running and then I remember people, is it the Vaporetto?
I don't know. I actually don't know the term.
I'm sorry. So I'm sorry to our Italian listeners.
So then, and we were, I remember people, it was taking so long for people to get on and off Oh my gosh.
It was stopping at every single stop. We were just trying to get to the train station.
It was so stressful. So stressful. Oh my gosh.
Okay. All right. So next one is layover.
So this is the actual time that you're in the airport between the flight.
So the layover is where you are to get to the connecting flight, correct?
Yes, exactly. So for example, I have a layover in Boston, but it's not long enough to leave the airport, unfortunately, right?
Best place we've had layovers. Oh my gosh.
So this is the question we could ask for a connection moment.
Michelle, where's the best place you've had a layover?
Real quick. I'm going to say Dubai because I thought it was really interesting to go through that airport and huge airport.
So I would say that. Unfortunately, it's not.
That's the thing is sometimes you get layovers in really cool places and you wish you had time to explore and you just don't.
So yeah. Yeah, it's so true. It's so true.
I love it. What about you? This is a weird answer.
You're going to be shocked by this answer, but I actually had a layover in Houston, Texas when I went to Argentina.
And it was kind of cool because we found a cool neighborhood to get a beer.
We met with some family that lives down there.
We had like 12 hours. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah.
So it was very cool. Yeah. Oh, very nice.
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Hiring Indeed is all you need. Okay, Michelle, we are back.
Oh my gosh, there's so much to talk about in this episode today.
Real quick, red eye flight. What is this?
This is important vocabulary. This is a big one for Lindsay.
Yeah. If anyone's been listening to the show for more than six months, they've heard this on the show, right?
Yes, because Lindsay always takes a red eye flight, except maybe not anymore.
I don't know. I'm moving away from them, but they are the cheapest and sometimes they're the easiest because you can work a full day and then go to the airport in the evening, but then you're a mess for three days, right?
For example, I'm taking a red eye, so I will probably be pretty tired when I get there.
So sometimes you don't even need to say flight, right?
If you say, oh, I'm taking a red eye, people know what that means, right?
And why is it called a red eye? Well, I used to think it was like the nose of the plane, but it's not the eye of the plane is red, it's the nose, right?
So it just means that people come off the plane with red eyes because they haven't really slept.
And this could be a whole other, and this is the question, right?
And I've had this question many times just in the last couple of months with people.
Michelle, are you good at sleeping on flights?
That is the connection question. Yeah. Not really.
I mean, it's not that I can't sleep at all, but I'm not so great.
What about you? No, because there's always the screens waking me up.
I don't like wearing eye masks. And also, I get really excited about the in-flight entertainment.
And also... Sometimes I get excited about listening to Allers English on the in-flight entertainment, which we are on certain European airlines.
We are on those airlines. No, just kidding.
I don't actually listen to Allers English.
But I get excited about the movie options.
That's funny. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's great.
You know, it's funny. I never have the patience to watch a movie on the plane.
I like to know. I don't know. I do a lot.
I do a lot of trying to sleep. I feel like that's mostly what I'm doing.
I should just watch a movie. But instead, I'm going to try and sleep.
I'm going to try and sleep. And then I should just watch a movie.
Yeah, I love that. I love that. It's not easy, Michelle.
It's not easy. We're running out of time here.
What should we do? Oh, my gosh. Should we do the last one?
Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's do it. All right.
So the last one is to fly. As you guys can see, this is a huge topic.
So fly standby. Yes. So this is you don't have a ticket and you're going to see if you can get on a flight, like if somebody cancels.
So, for example, sometimes you can get a good deal if you fly standby.
Okay. So Lindsay, have you ever flown standby?
That's the question. Yes, I just did this in my disaster in the airport in May where I had to, the flight crew never got on because they timed out.
I had to sprint over to the red eye at DIA and get on standby.
And I actually got on standby on that flight.
So I took the red eye back to Boston to see my family.
Yes, it worked out, Michelle. It worked out.
You need like a certain amount of points and all this stuff.
It's a whole thing, Michelle. It's not a democratic system, right?
Yes. Exactly. All right. Wow. As you can see, this is a huge connection topic because Lindsay and I couldn't stop talking in meaning that this episode is long.
So let's go through the role play and show how it looks all together.
All right. So in this role play, we are looking online for flights for a trip that we are going on together.
Here we go. Oh, how about this one? A red eye?
I can't. Okay, fine. Does it have to be direct, though?
It doesn't have to be non-stop, no, but I'd prefer not to have a very long layover.
I get it, I get it. Maybe we can get a connecting flight, though, to save some money.
That's okay with me. Would you ever fly standby?
Oh, that's way too stressful for me. Okay, fair enough.
Yeah. I mean, I know people that work for airports and they fly standby because they have a chance to go to like India or Japan randomly because they have the free credit, right?
I have friends. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I have friends too.
That's a great reason to fly standby. I'll go to Japan today.
Sure. Oh my gosh. All right. So this is really a common type of conversation.
You're looking online and you're going through.
So you said, how about this one? And I said, a red eye?
I can't. It's a real dividing line in terms of lifestyle and what people are willing to do.
Again, look for that episode using do. What do you tolerate, right?
And then I said, okay, fine. Does it have to be direct though?
So I'm saying, would you do a layover during the day?
Right. Right. Exactly. And I said, it doesn't have to be nonstop.
No, but I'd prefer not to have a very long layover.
And then I said, I get it. Maybe we can get a connecting flight, though, to save some money.
Yeah, because connecting flights are usually cheaper.
Right. And then I said. That's okay with me.
Would you ever fly standby? Good. All right.
Good stuff. So these really are the building blocks of a connection conversation.
And again, look at what we just did here, Michelle.
We just talked for 20 minutes and we didn't even know it was 20 minutes.
Like we lost track of time. So clearly, everyone, if you're a traveler, if you're excited about travel, open up this topic with someone else who's also a globetrotter, global traveler, and get into it.
Why not? There's a lot to say here. We only scratched the surface today.
That's true. Oh, my gosh. We can do so much more.
So we will do more. Definitely hit follow.
And thank you to our listeners for these questions.
These were great. Guys, I bet if maybe you are flying, maybe you're going to your happy place.
So head on over and listen to All Ears English.
The episode is called Find Your Happy Place in this episode.
All right. Good stuff. And guys, hit the follow button now for more great episodes from All Ears English.
Michelle, I will see you very soon. Have a good day.
Bye. You too. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.
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