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AR14 Timelines, Timetables and Flight Information

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Neobie:
There's no shortage of good flights into Moscow; ticket availability for the Moscow-Krasnojarsk leg is probably what's holding teams back.

Airports for those just joining in: Moscow has three main airports: Sheremtyevo, Domodedovo and Vnukovo. Baneasa is Bucharest's secondary airport.

There are plenty of flights through at least 13 European cities that can get teams poised for the first Moscow-Krasnojarsk flight at 8.55pm. With Apskip's Athens flight leaving Bucharest at 9.40am, even Tammy/Victor should be able to catch up with everyone if there were enough tickets.

I'm with Apskip in his flights. Mark/Michael, Jennifer/LaKisha and Christie/Jodi probably qualify for his "second wave of teams", arriving at 5.40am. This flight runs out of tickets, and the rest make up his "lagging teams combination", arriving at 6.45am. With the earlier flight flying out of Sheremtyevo and the later flight flying out of Domodedovo, that's likely what Mark meant when he mentioned the other teams "stuck at the other airport". Since Baneasa flights also wind up at the 8.55pm bunching point, it's not likely teams would be stuck at this "other airport".

In short, we should be seeing the three earliest teams holding a 65min lead over the rest of the pack.

(If ticket problems are that serious, there's a flight from Vnukovo arriving at 7.05am, and another arriving at 8.05am. Last flight out that evening leaves from Sheremtyevo, arriving at 9.10am.)

Teams 3, 5 and 6 scoring the best tickets? Are we seeing a bunching, probably a train from Brasov back to Bucharest? Or Mark's "leading teams" are not the leading teams at all?


Krasnojarsk is unlikely to be a 36-hour Pit Stop since there was just one in Bran, plus Phil can fly to Novosibirsk while teams take the train. Novosibirsk is likely to be extended, after which we have just the right amount of time to get to Jaipur. (Fixed stupid accidental swap. Thanks DrRox!)

Jaipur as a regular Pit Stop is the most likely reason why Phil isn't further ahead of the teams getting into Thailand. With Phuket on the 15th, Bangkok on the 16th and Guilin on the 17th, Phuket and Bangkok cannot be 36-hour Pit Stops.

Guilin can go either way depending on the transport from there to Beijing. I don't see a need for Beijing I to be extended (since Phil doesn't need to scramble to another city). Beijing II is not extended, or Phil would be way ahead of teams getting to Hawaii.

My educated picks: Bran on the 6th, Novosibirsk on the 11th, Guilin on the 18th. Which kind of (but not absolutely) fits into DrRox's "once a week" model.


Edited to add: Bran is confirmed as an extened Pit Stop. Phil cannot be a day ahead of the teams (as in his Krasnojarsk diaries) with a regular 12-hour Pit Stop; after eliminating Brad/Victoria he too is basically stuck in Romania for the night. He probably saved one trip over the racers though, with that direct flight to Moscow only available on the 6th...

apskip:
DELETED due to accuracy issue.

apskip:
Episode 4 Flight Alternatives

We know from the telecast that teams actually chose to go from Bucharest to Moscow by a number of different paths, connecting in Sofia, Frankfurt, Munich or Istanbul. Here are the flights they had access to in the relevant time frames (sometimes there is more than one possibility):

OTP SOFIA RO293 0820 0920, connecting to SOF SVO SU162 1240 1630

OTP FRA LH3417 0610 0750 or RO321 0910 1050, either connecting to SU106 FRA SVO 1405 1910  or FRA DME 1035 1550

OTP MUC LH3425 0700 0810, connecting to SU122 MUC SVO 1310 1825 or  MUC DME S74898 1015 1510

OTP IST RO261 0825 0955. connecting to TK1415 IST SVO 1335 1740, with no connections from Istanbul to DME

So, I conclude from the above that no team could possible catch the DME KJA flight Siberian S7 073 1010 1835. Next, I conclude that all teams going to Sheremetyevo airport would have access to the earliest arriving flight team could get SVO KJA SU779 2055 0540+1. Other teams could get DME KJA S7 071 2220 0645+1, but teams would do that only if restrictions froze them out of the earlier one. I think the leading teams Mark/Michael, Christie/Jody and Kisha/Jen have taken all available seats on SU779 and all other teams arrived later, not able to get on it despite ticketing, and were stuck with S7(Siberian) 071. The Backup would have been SU781 0045+1 0910+1, but it lands 3.5 hours after SU779 so that did not happen.

Now here is the really interesting part. In order to get the 2220 flight from Domodedovo, teams would have all flown into Sheremetyevo expecting to get the 2055 flight from there to Krasnoyarsk. All 5 teams left would have have to take shuttle buses or taxis across Moscow about 1 hour to DME airport. Not showing any of that drama or how the decisions to have 5 teams not on the 2055 flight is a real casualty of the new World Race Productions policies about air transportation's share of the telecast. More would have been appropriate.

EDITOR'S NOTE - As a result of a note below by Neobie, I doublechecked my work and found a few typos (not surprising since they happen to me all the time these days) and corrected them. SU162 now is SU172. SU176 (you had to see how I actually wrote this down in my notes) now is SU122 and its departure time was 1310, not 1300. I do have a diofferent connecting flight in Istanbul and I am sticking with it. Aeroflot does not have an office in Bucharest Airport and  the originating flight on Turkish Airlines would mean that Turkish is likely to have made the booking. Are they going to have a transfer in Istanbul to Aeroflot that arrives 35 minutes earlier? In a pig's eye, as that saying goes!

bearkat:
but wouldn't the teams if they caught the flight arriving at 6:45 catch up to the first three teams since the hours of operations at the dam was 8:30 and the 5 teams didn't arrive until the first three were doing their tasks

Neobie:
The only flight arriving after sunrise (at 8.09am) is the next best flight from Sheremetyevo, landing at 9.10am. The teams were all poised to board the earliest flight by flying into Sheremetyevo, but it looks like customs took longer than expected. Those scheduling the most comfortable connections were rewarded for it. Lead teams arrived in Krasnojarsk 3.5 hours before the trailing teams, and had an hour's lead even after hours of operation.

Teams could have cut their losses by trying any of the three flights from Domodedovo and Vnukovo, but I guess no one wanted to take the risk of leaving the pack and braving the Moscow traffic...

Below flights are somewhat different from Apskip's, but match up with Puck's over at TWoP. Perhaps we were looking at different dates?

From Bucharest to Moscow

LaKisha/Jennifer, Mark/Michael
RO293 to Sofia: 0820-0920
SU172 to Moscow SVO: 1240-1640 (4h15 for connection)
Jodi/Christie
RO261 to Istanbul: 0835-0950
SU208 to Moscow SVO: 1255-1705 (3h50 for connection)
Cara/Jaime, Luke/Margie, Tammy/Victor
LH3425 to Munich: 0700-0810
SU122 to Moscow SVO: 1310-1825 (2h30 for connection)
Mel/Mike, Amanda/Kris
LH3417 to Frankfurt: 0610-0750 OR
RO301 to Frankfurt: 0910-1050
SU106 to Moscow SVO: 1405-1910 (1h45 for connection)


From Moscow to Krasnojarsk

LaKisha/Jennifer, Mark/Michael, Jodi/Christie
SU779: 2055-0540
Cara/Jaime, Luke/Margie, Tammy/Victor, Mel/Mike, Amanda/Kris
SU781: 0045-0910

ETA: Five... hundred!

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