As of 13 August 2026, AI can avoid long flight connections.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Gather your UK departure airport, destination, travel dates, passenger details, baggage needs, maximum connection time and any airports or airlines you cannot use.
   2. Open a chatbot or Mindtrip and paste the prompt with your actual trip details filled in.
   3. Ask for the results to be refreshed if any schedule, price or availability is not clearly current, and reject any option with missing flight numbers or source links.
   4. Open the cited airline or booking results and compare each proposed itinerary with the live departure times, connection duration, ticket type and baggage rules.
   5. Check the airports' official information for terminal changes, airport transfers and any transit or visa requirement that applies to your route.
   6. Select an itinerary only after confirming that all flights are on the intended ticket, the connection fits your minimum time, and the final booking page shows the same details before you pay.

   Prompt

   Help me find flight itineraries with short, practical connections.
   
   Departure airport or airports: [UK departure airport or airports]
   Destination: [destination airport or airports]
   Outbound date: [date]
   Return date, if needed: [date or one-way]
   Passengers: [number and ages if relevant]
   Baggage: [cabin baggage, checked baggage or both]
   Maximum acceptable connection time: [maximum time]
   Minimum acceptable connection time: [minimum time]
   Airports I can use for connections: [airports or no preference]
   Airports I cannot use: [airports or none]
   Single-ticket itineraries only: [yes or no]
   Overnight connections acceptable: [yes or no]
   Other constraints: [mobility, visa, airline, alliance or schedule requirements]
   
   Use current, checkable flight information where you have access to it. Do not invent flight numbers, schedules, prices, availability, terminal details or minimum connection times. Give several viable options in a table with the airlines, flight numbers, airports, departure and arrival times, connection duration, whether the flights are on one ticket, baggage conditions and a source link for each material fact. Flag self-transfers, airport changes, terminal changes, overnight waits and any connection that may be too short. If you cannot verify live availability or a price, say so clearly and tell me exactly what to check before booking. Prefer options that avoid a long connection even if the total journey is not the cheapest.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.