OK, my supplementary flight analyses are complete. First comes the background. The Salt Mine Lunch can only be explained by an Extended Pitstop in the Krakow area. The question is for how long? My answer to that question is that it must be only a 24 hour extended pitstop, not the 36 hour variety and I offer as a rationale the need for Phil and the crew to get some rest after the breakneck speed and extended hours of episodes 7 and 8. Phil, the crew for the Guidos and the crew for Eric/Danielle had just over 1 hour between the pitstop ending 7 and the beginning of 8. They needed more than the usual 12 hours.
I have examined all routes from Krakow to all cities having long-haul nonstop flights to Kuala Lumpur. This includes Vienna (OS1), Zurich (MH9), London (MH3), Paris CDG (MH21), Amsterdam (MH17), and Frankfurt (MH 5). On Saturdays, Vienna and Zurich don't have those flights and they can only redirect traffic to the other gateways so they are out. The action starts around 7pm Saturday night which is the earliest that Uchenna/Joyce or Oswald/Danny could be on a flight. If they can get it, this is a fabulous combination:
OK537/OK770 departing KRK 1905 through PRG arriving FRA 2255
QF6 departing FRA 2355 to Singapore arriving Dec. 9 1800
SQ616 departing SIN 1915 arriving KUL 2015
Either something must happen en route or no team is able to make these flights, as a team that did would invalidate Izad's observations.
The morning of Dec. 9 all teams that haven't left will be at KRK airport ready to get on the earliest flights. Their choices revolve around OK771 deaprting at 0530 from KRK arriving Prague 0640, which connects with these flights:
BA853 arriving LHR 0910 connecting MH3 departing 1200 arriving KUL 0725
OK758 arriving CDG 0905 connecting MH21 departing 1200 arriving KUL 0635
OK534 arriving FRA 0835 connecting MH5 departing 1230 arriving KUL 0625
For AMS, LO3910 departed KRK 0600 through WAW connecting with SP2365 (code-share with LOT) arriving AMS 0945.
MH17 then departs AMS 1200 arriving KUL 0605. This is the earliest possible arrival on Dec. 10 from Europe. Unless the teams were released prior to 1230am from the Castle pitstop, there is no way I can see for the 3 trailing teams to get to KUL any earlier. If it were a Friday, it would be different.