Longer flight times to Asia in winter?

I was just looking over my trip itinerary for a November trip to Asia
and noticed one discrepancy. The exact same EVA flight that I took
just a few weeks ago from LAX-TPE got longer time wise from 13h 10m in
September to 14h 35m in November (Damn that is a long time to spend
nonstop in an airplane). What is the deal? I can only assume there
is some seasonal change that forces them to take a longer course.
Maybe they have to go further south to avoid to jet stream headed
there or something but even the return flight is more than an hour
longer as well and this is where the jet stream would be of benefit.
All I know is 14h 35m is a hell of a long time to spend in a plane.
Does anyone have an exact technical explanation for this extra 1h
25min on exactly the same route. I can assume it is seasonal and
weather related since they are scheduling it months in advance but if
I am going to be sitting on a plane for 14n 35m I'd be curious the
cause of the delay.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 17:35:35 -0700, *@X.* wrote:

I was just looking over my trip itinerary for a November trip to Asia
and noticed one discrepancy. The exact same EVA flight that I took
just a few weeks ago from LAX-TPE got longer time wise from 13h 10m in
September to 14h 35m in November (Damn that is a long time to spend
nonstop in an airplane). What is the deal? I can only assume there
is some seasonal change that forces them to take a longer course.
Maybe they have to go further south to avoid to jet stream headed
there or something but even the return flight is more than an hour
longer as well and this is where the jet stream would be of benefit.
All I know is 14h 35m is a hell of a long time to spend in a plane.
Does anyone have an exact technical explanation for this extra 1h
25min on exactly the same route. I can assume it is seasonal and
weather related since they are scheduling it months in advance but if
I am going to be sitting on a plane for 14n 35m I'd be curious the
cause of the delay.


Strange it would get longer in both directions. I wonder, did your
itinerary actually print flight durations or are you calculating them?
The US shifts from summer to winter time between September and
November...maybe that's why it looks longer? Or else is it a slower
plane? One with tighter ETOPS rules forcing rerouting?

But it is true that the winds are stronger in winter. I see an EVA
flight that is 14:20 long westbound and 11:20 eastbound in November.
In June it's 13:40 and 11:45, changing the wind's influence by almost
an hour.

"*"@X.* wrote:
and noticed one discrepancy. The exact same EVA flight that I took
just a few weeks ago from LAX-TPE got longer time wise from 13h 10m in
September to 14h 35m in November (Damn that is a long time to spend
nonstop in an airplane).

Average winds are stronger in winter. That is why Untied didn't operate its
Chicago-Hong-Kong flights non-stop during winter. You'll notice that the
TPE-LAX flights are faster in winter.

Another possibility is change of equipment. 747s are faster that 340s or 767s.

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 01:32:30 GMT, Dick Locke
wrote:

Strange it would get longer in both directions. I wonder, did your
itinerary actually print flight durations or are you calculating them?
The US shifts from summer to winter time between September and
November...maybe that's why it looks longer? Or else is it a slower
plane? One with tighter ETOPS rules forcing rerouting?


This comes from my travel agents Itinerary and also
http://matrix.itasoftware.com . But now I am starting to wonder if
this is in reality possibly a glitch in there software in how it deals
with daylight savings time. I'll have to add this up myself.

Here is what both my travel agents Itinerary and
http://matrix.itasoftware.com lists.

The flight time calculations are the software's, not mine.

EVA BR111
Departs LAX Sat, Aug 29 1:00a flight time 13 hrs 10 min
Arrives TPE Sun, Aug 31 5:10a

EVA BR111
Departs LAX Fri, Nov 21 11:30p flight time 14 hrs 20 min
Arrives TPE Sun, Nov 23 5:50a


Returning is another story. I got confused over the times because my
last flight actually landed a whole hour ahead of schedule due to a
favorable tail wind. The calculated time is in reality about the
same, blame my faulty memory for that.

EVA BR112
Departs TPE Sun, Sept 7 6:40p flight time 11 hrs 35 min
Arrives LAX Sun, Sept 7 3:15p

EVA BR12
Departs TPE Sun, Nov 30 6:40p flight time 11 hrs 20 min
Arrives LAX Sun, Nov 30 2:00p

@X. wrote:
I was just looking over my trip itinerary for a November trip to Asia
and noticed one discrepancy. The exact same EVA flight that I took
just a few weeks ago from LAX-TPE got longer time wise from 13h 10m in
September to 14h 35m in November (Damn that is a long time to spend
nonstop in an airplane). What is the deal? I can only assume there
is some seasonal change that forces them to take a longer course.
Maybe they have to go further south to avoid to jet stream headed
there or something but even the return flight is more than an hour
longer as well and this is where the jet stream would be of benefit.
All I know is 14h 35m is a hell of a long time to spend in a plane.
Does anyone have an exact technical explanation for this extra 1h
25min on exactly the same route. I can assume it is seasonal and
weather related since they are scheduling it months in advance but if
I am going to be sitting on a plane for 14n 35m I'd be curious the
cause of the delay.

Did you take in consideration the 2 hour time change?
In the fall, the Northern Hemisphere would set clock back an hour, and
in the Southern Hemisphere, they go forward an hour. I know for
instance that is now a 19 hour difference between here and SYD. This
will change to a 17 hour difference in a few weeks.

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:33:55 GMT, mrtravel
wrote:

Did you take in consideration the 2 hour time change?
In the fall, the Northern Hemisphere would set clock back an hour, and
in the Southern Hemisphere, they go forward an hour. I know for
instance that is now a 19 hour difference between here and SYD. This
will change to a 17 hour difference in a few weeks.

TPE, not SYD...TPE is at 25 North lat...IIRC, they don't do summer
time there.

Dick Locke wrote:
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:33:55 GMT, mrtravel
wrote:


Did you take in consideration the 2 hour time change?
In the fall, the Northern Hemisphere would set clock back an hour, and
in the Southern Hemisphere, they go forward an hour. I know for
instance that is now a 19 hour difference between here and SYD. This
will change to a 17 hour difference in a few weeks.


TPE, not SYD...TPE is at 25 North lat...IIRC, they don't do summer
time there.


Yes, that make sense. So, this means they are an hour closer in during
when the US is on Standard time, so if the software doesn't account for
it, it will looked like it takes an hour longer to get there