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What term can I use to express the delay between two connecting flights in the following situation: I fly down to one airport and wait there without exiting until I take another flight to reach my destination.

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3 Answers

up vote 11 down vote

layover

is the term for the wait between the arrival time at an airport (not the final destination) and the time of departure.

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wiktionary says a layover is an overnight stop only – z7sg Ѫ Nov 8 '11 at 14:51
@z7sg: Each to their own. I personally would say stopover implies overnighting, but layover (standard terminology in the UK bus industry) is usually much shorter, and may only be a few minutes. – FumbleFingers Nov 8 '11 at 15:03
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Safety tip: Android phones don't always know this word. Thanks to autocorrect I accidentally texted my wife that I had "a 2 hour lover" in Dallas. Fortunately she was amused. :-( – T.E.D. Nov 8 '11 at 15:11
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@z7sgѪ: many other on-line resources just say "A short stop or break in a journey". – Mitch Nov 8 '11 at 16:17
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@z7sgѪ: I went ahead and asked a relevant question at meta.ELU. I think wiktionary is wrong, but then what if -I- am wrong. – Mitch Nov 8 '11 at 16:38
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up vote 4 down vote

In American English, this is often called a layover,

a short stay somewhere between two parts of a journey

In my experience, it is most commonly used to describe a wait of several hours between flights or trains, during which you often do not or cannot leave the transit hub. How long is your layover in NYC? Can we meet for lunch?

Layover is sometimes used to describe an overnight stay, but in American English I would tend to ask, instead, How long are you staying? if I expected the answer to be that you were staying at least one night.

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+1 for layover, I believe stopover not to be in American usage. – Brendon Nov 8 '11 at 14:58
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@Brendon, stopover – Unreason Nov 8 '11 at 15:47
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I like the ngram, but I've never heard the word stopover used in conversation. Maybe it's a regional thing? – Brendon Nov 8 '11 at 15:56
An unusual number of birds seem to make stopovers in that ngram so I think that might distort the numbers a little too. Stopover is definitely attested in COCA as @z7sg pointed out somewhere... I just haven't heard it much! – aedia λ Nov 8 '11 at 16:02
up vote 3 down vote

You can call the wait a stopover.

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you're right about the link. fixed. lone word from where? – Mark Nov 8 '11 at 14:37
ah i meant all one word ;o) fixed now anyway – z7sg Ѫ Nov 8 '11 at 14:49
I did see the spelling "stop-over" in at least one dictionary. I'm curious - is this the usual term in British English? I would say "I'm stopping over there for a bit", maybe, but I don't think I've ever called a wait a stopover. (I am from the east coast of the US.) – aedia λ Nov 8 '11 at 14:54
@aediaλ I don't think it's exclusively British. It gets a lot of hits in COCA. More than layover. – z7sg Ѫ Nov 8 '11 at 15:15
I'm from the east coast of the US as well and I would only say stopover. To me a layover is overnight or at least a long period of time, like 6 hours or more. – Mark Nov 9 '11 at 7:54

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