Sorry if this seems like a silly question, but I know very little about real-world flight planning. Do the major airlines stick exclusively to airways wherever possible, or do they use routes which go direct from waypoint to waypoint, taking them off established airways, if this saves enough time/fuel/money to justify it?Thanks,Philip.

As a flightplanner myself, when I run flightplans we take the minimum cost route.The factors that come into that are things like Navigational Charges and Fuel Cost.Inter Europe flights, using DCT's is extreamly limited, so within Europe Airways are used.In places like the South Atlantic (Between Europe and Brazil), Africa and North America the use of directs are used more often then airways.Cheers

Thanks for the info.Regards,Philip.