They don't. Flights are canceled all the time, especially long haul flights. See this quote by travel writer Maggie Teneva:
“Long-haul flights are often associated with long layovers and delays or cancellations.”
If there are unexpected changes to the jet stream or winds mid-flight, a non-stop flight might even stop for fuel:
“ Dozens of Continental Airlines flights to the East Coast from Europe have been forced to make unexpected stops in Canada and elsewhere to take on fuel after running into unusually strong headwinds over the Atlantic Ocean.
The stops, which have caused delays and inconvenience for thousands of passengers in recent weeks, are partly the result of a decision by United Continental Holdings Inc., the world's largest airline, to use smaller jets on a growing number of long, trans-Atlantic routes. ”
Per ETOPS, plane flight routes are required to be in vicinity of airports or landing strips for unexpected stops like that. Even long haul flights over oceans need the capability to make detour routes to islands with landing strips in case something like the above happens. The US Military is even known to maintain landing strips on certain uninhabited islands in remote locations for ETOPS purposes.
The quote from Maggie teneva (who she?) is simply a throwaway line at the end of an article about entertaining your kids on longhaul.
The "
stopping for fuel" link doesn't go anywhere.
The Continental Airlines example is undated, has no reference, and (if true) sounds like poor planning by the airline in not using aircraft with apprpriate capacity/range.
ETOPS is not a restriction; it is a relaxation of previously existing routes that require aircraft to route within 1-hour flying time of a suitable diversion airfield. In the case of the Airbus A350, this can now be extended to 5hrs 30min at single engine cruise speed (frightening but true), meaning that only Antarctica is off limits (unless, of course, one of the ice-runways is the destination).
The USAF, being outwith ICAO regulations, is not limited by ETOPS. The United States maintains "landing strips on certain uninhabited islands in remote locations" for military operational, security and diplomatic purposes.
Aircraft often divert from route for reasons of security, medical or technical emergency, but beyond the apocryphal stements you have made, I challenge you to identify a single recent occurance made purely for a splash and dash. Any commercial aircraft diverting from its planned route purely for a fuel stop would find its captain and dispatcher having a series of one-way conversations with management.
And yes, jetstreams are a perpetual phenomenon, but no they are not alway at the extreme stengthsyou suggest, and almost without excdeption are a west-to-east direction. Apart from local eddies there is absolutely no, general, assistance, anywhere on Earth, to westbound travel.
Your statement "
Flights are canceled all the time, especially long haul flights" is simply untrue. For example, I've just looked at data on FR24 for LATAM's Santiago-Melbourne service LA804/805; run with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The service operates 3 times a week in each direction and between 15 Feb and today, 12 weeks,
36 planned return trips; one cancellation. And the flight times:
Santiago-Melbourne; quickest 12.55 (16 Feb), longest 14.45 (1 March).
Melbourne-Santiago; quickest 11.38 (12 March), longest 12.35 (23 March).
Action80; You haven't said when your flight was, or whether it was over land or sea, but its not unusual. Over land there is normally good radar coverage and separation is normally monitered by ATC controllers. Oceanic; aircraft are cleared to fly a route between specific waypoints, but the principal separation is made by altitude. Separation used to be 1000feet but for the last 20 years or so this was reduced to just 500feet, with a strict regime of altimeter-inspections and aircrew compliance. At about a mile, a 500foot difference would probably be indistinguishable.
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