You might know that Akademy 2009 is going to be held in the Canary Islands in July. It’s going to be fantastic and fun and hot and warm and we’ll be absolutely spending time at the beach rather than listening to some technical mumbo jumbo.
But I have to say – it must be one of the most ill conceived locations to put a conference. It’s far from the US. It’s relatively far from Europe, and it’s fucking far from Australia. The only people that will have a short trip will be those in Western Sahara.
My tentative flight route is ridiculous – via Singapore, Milan and Madrid. That’s 3 stop overs. 38 hours of travel time. Plotting straight lines from stop to stop puts the trip at a whopping 19514.39km. Just so you know just how far this is: it is 32% of the radius around Saturn. I’m not even going to tell you the cost.
That’s exactly the comment i made myself a few days ago. I had no intention to go to akademy this year in the first place but the location would have likely convinced me not to go anyway. It would be nice to see an akademy in Norh America one day though. The Montréal area is relatively cheap and easy to reach for instance while avoiding the hassle of US immigration.
I am not going this year for personal reasons, but to people that live in Europe it is not really far, a couple of hours flight from Madrid does not look that far… I do not understand the rant, though:at least for us in Brazil it is mostly the same as going to Belgium, Dublin or Glasgow, for example. Is it not the same for you in distance?
> it is 32% of the radius around Saturn.
And 3 time the Earth’s mean radius!
@Mauricio: Oh, this isn’t a rant
The end distance is similar, but it is many many many more hours of flight time, stop overs and costs.
@Seb: I see. Yes, depending on the airline here the cost is ridiculous as well, I can’t understand their pricing model… Well, last year it was cheaper for me to go Sao Paulo->AMS->Brussels then it was if I purchased Sao Paulo->AMS only, IN THE SAME DATE AND FLIGHT… what the ??
If you use Iberia however flying to Canaries is cheaper (from Brazil) then going to previous Akademys, though.
Was the swearing really necessary?
I’m not against swearing per se, but this just seems gratuitous.
This is a family blog… think of the children!
I’m just back from Gran Canaria. I live in Scotland which is a 4 hour flight away. The weather is amazing and the night life is great. The flight only cost £200 return which is now 200 euro or about $1,000,000 US
It’s also the gay capital of Europe – or Playa del Ingles is rather
Considering the venue changes every year I really don’t think anyone should complain least swear
Mike
Everywhere it’s fucking far from Australia
I completely agree. This is first time I’ve had to make a connection in Europe to get somewhere. Usually its go to my local airport -> fly to an American hub airport -> fly to destination in Europe. Looking at past Akademy locations, I bet I could’ve done this with every single one of them. But this year its local airport -> American hub -> European hub (Madrid) -> destination (Las Palmas).
The deal is that the Canaries are the “local beach spot” of Europe, so there are no transatlantic flights to it (or at least, not enough to show up in my booking) since N. America has its own local beach spots (Florida and Mexico). So I also have to add a connecting flight, so the total travel time will take about 21 hours. It also adds about >$300 to the cost of the ticket.
Looking at your map… just imagine Seb if you didn’t happen to live in whats probably the major hub airport of Australia. Another connecting flight!
But yea you really got the shaft. It seems odd that you have to do a connection just to get to one of the dozen-or-so cities that fly to the Canaries. Thats probably just bad luck.
But like I said in the previous message a connection in Europe is *required*, even if you live in the Sahara I bet.
well, it is yet fucking far from Hong Kong.
Deep vein thrombosis!
jet lag guarantee
be brave man! 
too bad there is no hub in Africa
Nitpicker’s comment: The radius is not *around* Saturn, it’s *halfway through* Saturn
19000km is actually about 1/20th of the circumference *around* Saturn.
-Darkstar
@Mauricio : that is due to a special tax that the Netherlands has (they will abondon it on July 1st) of 45 euro per single international fare for flights originating or ending there. The tax is not applied for stopover flights. While tax was meant to discourage flying, it had the perverse effect of many Dutch people booking extra flights. For example at one point AMS->CPT was 100 euro more expensive than BXL->AMS->CPT with the same company… So all Dutch people drove (by car) to Brussels, took a flight there back to Amsterdam (35 minutes in the air) to connect onwards to Kaapstad.