Rainy, 

‘ faire escale ‘ is a fixed, commonly used French expression. If it helps to remember it,  ‘ escale ‘ is not something ‘ had ‘ but something ‘ done ‘ in French. 

Translation has to make sense in the target language - so ‘ have a stopover ‘ in English becomes ‘ faire (une) escale ‘ in French here. ( I think the article ‘une’ is not essential here in French, but can be included )

French uses ‘ faire ‘ in many expressions that would/could use other verbs in English. Sometimes, of course, French uses other verbs when in English we would use ‘ make ‘ eg ‘ prendre une décision ‘. 

 

 https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/escale/30931

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/faire%20escale

 https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/glossary/literality/idioms-with-faire

 https://www.lawlessfrench.com/expressions/faire-expressions/