Originally Posted by
sokolov
Is it common to have substantially different block times on the same route when the aircraft is the same as well?
I am looking at the EWR-YHZ-EWR route, operated with Expressjet's Embraer 145. Most days, there are two rotations.
EWR-YHZ flights always have a block time of 1:57h.
YHZ-EWR flights have either 2:07h (morning) or 2:33h (afternoon). Weekend or weekday, doesn't matter.
As you can see, the block time of the afternoon YHZ-EWR flight is about 1/3 longer than any EWR-YHZ flight. And that is not due to jetstream effect, as the morning flight is much faster. Yes, variations in traffic affect travel time, but wouldn't that be more a problem in the morning rush than in the afternoon, and wouldn't such variations affect both directions?
Generally, I wouldn't care about the block time. I have flown this route many times. But with the current time table, the longer afternoon block time pushes me out of the minimum connection time at EWR.
After reviewing the schedule, it looks like this whole thread is predicated on bad data.
For UA flights YHZ-EWR 2017/2/1-2018/1/31 I found the following stats:
Code:
origin | destination | timing | min | avg | max | flights
--------+-------------+-----------+-------+-------+-------+---------
YHZ | EWR | morning | 02:07 | 02:13 | 02:39 | 365
YHZ | EWR | afternoon | 02:12 | 02:25 | 02:33 | 546
The morning flight isn't "always" 2:07 and the afternoon flight isn't "always" 2:33. The average difference isn't a third longer, its 8.6% longer.
The description of the EWR-YHZ flight is similarly inaccurate:
Code:
origin | destination | timing | min | avg | max | flights
--------+-------------+-----------+-------+-------+-------+---------
EWR | YHZ | morning | 02:07 | 02:07 | 02:07 | 190
EWR | YHZ | afternoon | 01:48 | 01:57 | 02:09 | 721
The morning flight is never the quoted 1:57, etc etc.
Using different assumptions for morning vs afternoon winds would explain this difference in average flight time in both directions.