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We intend to air-travel from East Sussex to Antalya. What is the fastest route if we divide the journey into 2-hour direct flights?

I randomly picked Frankfurt and Sarajevo as places to break the journey, but I would like to avoid Bosnia and Herzegovina because of their requirements to travel with children.

Travelling with children

Children under 18 years of age who are not Bosnian nationals and who are travelling unaccompanied or accompanied by an adult person other than their parents must carry a notarised letter from their parents giving permission for the child to travel. The name of the accompanying adult must be clearly stated. If the child is accompanied by one parent, particularly if the parent has a different surname to the child’s, the accompanying parent should carry a notarised letter from the other parent giving permission to travel.

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    that rule about children travelling without both parents is not unique to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getting a notarized letter is good practice no matter what countries you intend to traverse.
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 11:03
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    I thought the hardest parts of flights with small children were take off/landing (for them, due to the pressure changes and the effect on the ears when you can’t control it, for which a pacifier may help), and all the queuing, boarding and deplaning (mostly for you). Which would make 3 two-hour flights a lot worse than a single 4-hour flight… But I don’t have kids :-)
    – jcaron
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 15:36
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    Why would you like to do that? For travelling with children, non-stop is almost always the by far best options. Each flight leg has significant overhead and pain points: waiting, boarding, stowing your stuff, taxiing, take off, landing, etc. The actual time cruising in the air is the easiest part. Source: 3 children with lots of domestic and international flights
    – Hilmar
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 15:51
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    @Ulkoma: I do have some experience with ASD children but I don't want to argue, just be helpful. You can load up and iPad with tons of videos and games (maybe some fresh ones) or bring a portable DVD player or laptop. Flight time from Gatwick to Antalya is 4h:20m, maybe 5 hours total on the plane. Let's say you route through Bucharest and Vienna: total flight time is now over 6 hours with at least 8 hours total plane time, not counting the connection times. Planes spend a lot of time on the tarmac and climbing and descending.
    – Hilmar
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 17:30
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    You'd also have three times boarding and deplaning which are very chaotic events and prime opportunities for a melt down. With a non-stop you can probably make it door to door in 8-9 hours or less. With three legs you will probably have to break it up into 2 or even 3 travel days especially if you need to self connect. I doubt you could buy this a single ticket. Multiple tickets is another can of worms and something I would highly recommend against especially with an ASD child.
    – Hilmar
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 17:35

1 Answer 1

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I'll assume nominal flight times are what you're looking for, and take them from www.flightconnections.com.

I also assume that you're concerned about the effect of a long journey on a small child, from hints in the question. While two hours travel time is often-quoted and may be your preference, it's far from a hard limit. By stretching it a tiny bit on one leg, you can save a whole flight. Anyway, your Sarajevo leg is 2:15.

I looked at destinations from Antalya (AYT) as close to 2 hours as possible, heading in the right direction. Bucharest (OTP) is 1:55, so that's a good start. From there I suggest relaxing your criterion by just 5 minutes - OTP-MUC (Munich) is 2:05, then MUC-LGW (Gatwick) is 2:00. Alternatively OTP-VIE (Vienna) is 1:45 and VIE-LGW is 2:05.

Instead of Bucharest, you can go via Skopje (SKP), also 1:55 from AYT. Then it's 2:10 to Zurich (ZRH) followed by 1:40 to LGW. SKP doesn't share many destinations with LGW, and you may as well end up the right side of London rather than come into one of its other airports.

I haven't tried to turn any of these routes into an itinerary, or cost them, because I don;t know how much downtime you want between flights.

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    I’m not sure where the 2 hour limit comes from given that I’ve seen babies on 14 hour flights… They all seemed fine to me.
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 16:38
  • @JonathanReez some people who ought to know about these things advise against putting little ones in seats for hours on end (e.g. car seats but I've seen it applied to flying as well). We just took plenty of breaks when driving and moved around the plane when flying, but the latter was rare. Anyway the OP's position now appears slightly different
    – Chris H - UK
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 20:36
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    I'm not finding any such recommendations on authoritative websites. If you're aware of the WHO or CDC or someone of equivalent authority recommending a 2 hour limit, it would be good to link it. This would be very interesting news to millions of parents who take their babies on 10+ hour flights.
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 20:40
  • @JonathanReez The justification is a matter for the question, not the answer. I actually need to edit down my assumption in the light of edits to the question.
    – Chris H - UK
    Commented May 4, 2022 at 20:42

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