International business class on regional or domestic flights

Some airlines may choose to fly a luxury product on shorter flights. Think of AA’s Flagship service, or United’s P.S. flights. These are products designed for that market, but if you had the choice of flying a regional jet or a twin-aisle with fully flat beds, which would you choose? There’s a quirk in international passenger aviation that allows for airlines to fly larger jets on some rather short routes. This is known as a fifth freedom flight.

When an airline has fifth freedom rights, it is allowed to fly from its home country to a destination, pick up passengers at that destination, and fly them on to a third country. There are a number of reasons for these flights. The plane may not be able to reach the final destination and it has to stop to refuel (consider Singapore Airlines’ service to New York via Frankfurt), or perhaps the market just doesn’t sustain two separate flights so the route is combined.

Either way, there are some interesting flights to be done on international carriers. Here’s a look at a few of them:

Vancouver to New York on Cathay Pacific and Philippine Airlines

Cathay Pacific is able to fly passengers non-stop from its base in Hong Kong to both of these cities individually, but the airline maintains its flight between Canada’s West Coast city to the Big Apple. For passengers looking to fly in international first class, this trans-continental journey can be a good deal using points if you can find the availability. Philippine Airlines also will fly passengers between New York and Vancouver, but if you’re looking to get to Manilla this is a stop you can’t skip.

Madrid-Frankfurt on Latam

In Europe, there’s a flight operated by LATAM Chile that flies between Frankfurt and Madrid. If you would like to have a fully-flat bed for this relatively short flight, you are in luck if you can get a seat on Latam’s 787-dreamliner

Island Hopping in the Caribbean

British Airways still offer a number of flights between islands in the Caribbean including between Antigua and St. Kitts, Nassau to Grand Cayman, and a few others. These schedules do vary.