It’s called a fifth freedom flight. And what that means is that an airline not based in one country is allowed to fly to another country where it also isn’t based.

In many cases, these are positioning flights to get the plane to a destination to take passengers onward to a city where the airline is based.

For example, do you want to fly from New York to Athens? You could fly United, Delta or American. Or you could take the nonstop Emirates flight. Many times, it’s also less expensive.

Are you flying from Copenhagen to Rome? Singapore Airlines has a flight. And how about Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires? Believe it or not, Turkish Airlines flies the route.

These are just a few of these fifth freedom flights. And because of these positioning flights, the planes are often less full as well.