Originally Posted by
COSPILOT
Everyone looked at Flightaware and missed the obvious? Look at the altitudes, this flight never got above 24,000, which is well below the typical altitudes flown.
Where are you seeing that? When I look in FlightAware I only see altitude data for the first ~30 minutes of flight, so I can't see how you're saying it never got above FL240?
Low altitudes like this for US-SYD flights are not uncommon during the first periods of flight. FL240 is lower than normal, but not overly. eg, on the 7th of Jan the same flight stayed at FL260 for the majority of the first 4 hours of flight.