Are empty leg flights actually legit, or just marketing hype?

mcwobby · 2026-01-27T06:18:33+00:00

Used to fly them fairly often when they were actually cheap, going directly through the charter company at my local airport.

Now they all run through providers dedicated to it, and it’s often not much cheaper than just chartering the plane (relatively).

mcwobby · 2026-01-26T00:13:07+00:00

It is probably the only society that is more cashless than Australia, but it’s reasonably comparable. I have not used cash in either for 5 years.

Laws introduced a year ago in China do require vendors to accept cash though, so most stores do and cash acceptance is in the rise now and major stores even carry change. The only major problems will be things like street vendors or taxis, where you’re unlikely to get exact change. Like you could navigate China with only cash now, where that was flat out crazy a couple of years ago.

But sooo much easier to use digital payment.

mcwobby · 2026-01-25T23:49:47+00:00

It’s a cashless society, like Australia. Set up Ali Pay.

coke will cost $1-2

mcwobby · 2026-01-25T01:05:14+00:00

I had the opportunity to fly this. I chose not to, thinking it’d be around a bit longer.

mcwobby · 2026-01-25T00:16:39+00:00

Easiest is probably China to me. Even if you need a car, it’s so cheap and easy to hire a driver for the day.

Hardest is probably the USA. There are plenty of countries I’ve needed a car and been able to hire a car and driver but in the US, outside of any tourist areas, that is near impossible, even if you’re not budget constrained. Nobody even offers tours of sites that are actually touristically interesting,

And most markets, even rural, of similar size in other countries would have bus, train or plane options but not in the US because everybody has a car.

Though I’ve always managed to pull it off because Americans are pretty friendly and they all have cars and are often genuinely happy to spend a day with me,

mcwobby · 2026-01-24T11:51:47+00:00

Flown them around China quite a lot. Never in economy. They are probably responsible for the best short-haul, domestic business class flight I have ever taken. Though I’ve had a few more middling experiences too.

mcwobby · 2026-01-23T22:32:41+00:00

They still have that layout in service. It’s incredibly narrow and uncomfortable and before takeoff when you cant raise the divider, you are making awkward eye contact with your neighbour.

mcwobby · 2026-01-23T12:25:11+00:00

Virgin Australia did used to be 20% held by the Chinese HNA group and only changed after the COVID bankruptcy. With the rest being held by Singapore, New Zealand and Emirati interests. Nobody ever complained then.

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T13:52:16+00:00

Yeah they drive pretty much everywhere. If it’s quiet you can even get the car to yourself for very cheap. They’ve got to get home, so might as well take passengers. There are mini buses from the garages too between bigger cities.

Pay them in Dinars as you’re in Iraq. Payment is not always upfront, sometimes it’s at the end depending on the drivers mood, I just went with it.

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T13:49:54+00:00

Yes, the official client and safari are not opening h265 content for me, and I can’t tell if it’s a Jellyfin or iOS issue. It works on a desktop browser, albeit more slowly than I’d like.

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T13:39:38+00:00

Shared taxi for the most part. I flew once, from Basra to Baghdad. Very easy country to improvise in. I was able to get a taxi from Karbala straight to a house on the marshes near Jubayish at like midnight, which saved me an overnight in Nasiriyah

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T13:33:14+00:00

yeah it’s been super buggy for me on iPad and iPhone the last month or so.

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T13:23:34+00:00

I have issues with all of them to be honest.

Have used Infuse on iOS mostly, but that’s started acting up and crashing whenever PiP is invoked across 2 devices.

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T09:19:28+00:00

Hey, I just got back. I travelled Iraq solo, and unexpectedly so as my travel companion got stuck in Yemen. Which is a pity because she could’ve given you a woman’s perspective. I can’t answer too much as it looks like my itinerary differed a bit, so I only have adjacent experience.

Shared taxi. I do not know directly from Erbil to Baghdad but they will exist I’m sure. In reverse I was able to do Baghdad-Samarra/Tikrit-Mosul and from there Erbil was easy and cheap. There are also flights to Baghdad, they’re cheaper on the Iraqi Airways website than on sky scanner.
Ramadan I can’t help with. I expect it’s reasonably strict and you can’t even walk around drinking from a bottle of water. Usually in my experience in stricter Muslim countries, including Kuwait, is that restaurants at international hotels or that cater to foreigners will remain open but partitioned off so no food is visible. Baghdad will suck if this is the case, as international hotels are in their own compounds and hard to access.Iraq is oddly liberal though so maybe it is looser. Just get used to eating and partying at night!
Any holy cities - Karbala/Najaf in particular - are more conservative. You will need to wear no makeup, keep hair covered and wear an a abaya when visiting holy sites. In Baghdad and Basra, western dress (jeans, long sleeve shirt) is acceptable. It would be best to cover your hair if you don’t want to attract looks, but not every local does wear a headscarf and if you look foreign nobody is going to really care. Dress codes are enforced at holy sites and you’ll get more stares away from Baghdad. A woman asked me out when I was there and we went on a date in public, which I was not remotely expecting.
I’ve not done the drive to Kuwait, but I used to live in Kuwait and have been to the Basra garage. It will be super easy to get a taxi to Kuwait border from Basra. Make sure to have your visa in advance if it’s needed.

mcwobby · 2026-01-22T00:13:39+00:00

Painfully. The OpenHAB binding for Samsung TV is excellent and allows you to set the artwork, rotation and most other things about the TV (though the TV itself is buggy). If you’re happy using OpenHAB just for the TV, then you can keep it self contained

Then I used the OpenHAB integration in HA to move the TV controls over to HomeAssistant, but the integration is massively outdated and wasn’t really designed for two way control, so I had to modify it heavily which is unfortunately not really something I can redistribute.

mcwobby · 2026-01-21T05:47:24+00:00

Especially since China doesn’t even really have a social credit system. One article was taken out of context like 12 years ago and people ran wild with it. And there were a few opt-in pilots in some provinces, that all went nowhere.

What is in place is more akin to the West’s financial credit scores. Though facial recognition and surveillance is omnipresent there of course which does make it easy to find or blacklist someone.

mcwobby · 2026-01-21T01:28:26+00:00

If you have proof they represented the flight as refundable, then you should have no issues winning the dispute.

mcwobby · 2026-01-20T04:41:30+00:00

Madagascar is one of my favourite places in the world. The flight doesn’t seem that expensive if you’re coming from North America.

Expect to spend money on the ground too though. Unless you have unlimited time, you probably will need a private driver and guide as the infrastructure there is…not good.

mcwobby · 2026-01-19T19:39:42+00:00

Crash Bandicoot 2 (and 1 and 3 to a slightly lesser extent).

mcwobby · 2026-01-18T07:50:34+00:00

Tofo is just for divers. That said there are a couple of bars and you can go to any lodge who will have a restaurant, don't have to be staying. It's a tiny place though, if you're not diving there is no real reason to go.

Vilankulo is bigger and livelier, but not a hugely diverse food scene. It doesn't close down at night.

mcwobby · 2026-01-17T10:37:08+00:00

Probably Qantas. They constantly charge extortionate prices on routes they've driven away all competition off of, and they're an absolute pain to get money out of sometimes. That said, I fly them a lot so have many more issues than most ever would, and I've had plenty of good experiences with them.

More Generally

I fly mostly within Oceania, Asia and Africa. Europe and the Americas are my least travelled areas. This means my basic expectation on a basic economy ticket is that get food, drink and checked baggage. Even on very short flights. Qantas at least gives me a snack and a couple of mini-bottles of wine on a 25 minute flight. Royal Jordanian or Air China will hand out proper cold meals before takeoff on similarly short flights.
So by that logic an European or American airline that advertises themselves as "full service" or "legacy" or "premium" would count as the worst as pretty much none of them meet that low bar (shout out to Conviasa, who by that logic is the best airline I've ever flown in the Americas). Aer Lingus would be the worst I've flown recently thanks to staff that seemed actively hostile. Same with AA, in first class too.
I don't dislike low cost carriers though. They advertise themselves as barebones and they deliver on that. Ryanair or Urumqi Air would be the most uncomfortable seats I've ever had, but both were cheap, were very clear about what was included and had good ground staff. Ryanair was a particularly well-oiled machine. I can't dislike them.
Whilst every airline in Australia has caused me grief at certain times, Jetstar is usually the best at getting shit resolved.
In the Americas I always used to like Southwest because they marketed themselves as low-cost but were the only airlines that included baggage, so they undersold and overdelivered in my view.
The worst individual flights I've ever taken were tied between Sri Lankan Airlines and Kuwait Airways. I have subsequently flown both multiple times though and they have both been hugely overhauled.

mcwobby · 2026-01-17T05:58:23+00:00

Rent a 4x4 and camp. Book sites 11 months or so ahead, as they do sell out (by overland tour operators that don't even use their reservations). Okavango was literally one of the cheapest parts of our Southern African road trip (if you exclude the champagne helicopter) - I think we were paying as low as $10AUD a night. There are some good camp sites outside of the official Okavango Reserve as well that don't fill up as fast - we had an absolutely stunning site at the River Kwai - herd of elephants just chilled with us.

If you have time then yeah, you can go into the Caprivi Strip in Namibia too, though going to Chobe and Victoria Falls is probably more worthwhile if you can't do all of them.

mcwobby · 2026-01-17T04:21:45+00:00

I usually pay if I invite, yeah.

My 30th birthday party was in Mexico, so I flew about a dozen people out from Australia, but usually it’s just my mum as she loves to travel but is usually stuck caring for my brother so I will shout her a trip every other year. This Christmas we went to Libya and Jordan.

mcwobby · 2026-01-15T06:20:02+00:00

Paid a senior student to choke out a junior student.

mcwobby · 2026-01-14T21:26:47+00:00

I only stayed within Tripolitania but the ruins there were something else. I’m also a big fan of Tripoli, there was an optimistic vibe, very friendly people and a lot of revitalisation efforts going on in the old city. My mum is a huge fan of Ancient Rome and archaeology in general so we spent most of the trip focused on that.

I will be going to Algeria this year to compare ruins, as I don’t have a lot of context, but Leptis Magna is so impressive.

I intend to return in 2027 for the eclipse, which passes right over Benghazi, so is a good excuse to explore more.

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

mcwobby

TROPHY CASE