BA286 - Why the change in departure times?
 

Hello,

My flight BA286 in May departs at 19:00hrs but my BA286 Dec flight is scheduled for a 20:00 departure.
Is this normal? Or will it be "fine-tuned" later in the year?

I hope it is because departing at 20:00hrs gives an arrival time in LHR of 14:00hrs and obviously shortens the day for onward travel in what will already be a shortened winter daylight day.

Thanks for any replies^

The timings change between summer and winter schedules as far as I am aware.

To add a bit to what stu1985 says: There are two scheduling seasons every year. Northern Summer starts on the last Sunday in March; and Northern Winter starts on the last Sunday in October. Flights typically have different scheduled times in the two seasons. These can reflect broad changes in flying conditions - eg stronger winds on some routes during the Northern Winter season.

In addition, you can find that flight times change by an hour when the country at one end of the route changes to or from daylight saving time on a different day from the former convention (which is still reflected in the dates of the scheduling seasons and in European law). But this won't apply to the flights that you mention.

A couple of months or so before the start of each scheduling season, schedules do get re-jigged as the final touches are put on. However, my impression is that it's relatively unusual for a time to change by as much as an hour in this process.

Hello,

Thank you both for your replies^

I was hoping it would get earlier, more in line with summer schedules, so I'd have more daylight time for my onward journey but it will all work out!

Thanks again.

Is it not to do with the fact the US change time a couple of weeks before Europe. In that at the moment East Coast time is only 4 hours behind until Europe changes clocks

Not when comparing May schedules with December schedules, which was the OP's question!

slightly off topic but this thread made me check how the schedule change would impact my most frequent route at the moment between Dusseldorf and Glasgow and was dissapointed to see it isn't good!

At present I can do a full day in the office in Dusseldorf and get a flight departing at 19:20 with a reasonable connection which gets me in to Glasgow around 22:20. On a Sunday I can leave Glasgow at 17:10 and arrive in to Dusseldorf with a reasonable connection at 22:00. In the Summer schedule I'll need to leave DUS at 18:05 - ok, I'll get to Glasgow 20 minutes earlier, but I'll also have to leave Glasgow 1h40min earlier on the Sunday - with long connections at Heathrow in both directions. I suspect this will push more of my flights on to KLM.