redrose59

I know that there are folk on here who will understand this much better than I ever could but I recall once reading something about JNB being a "Hot and High" airport and that is one consideration why most of the flights to Europe take off later in the day.
When we go to JNB in a few weeks time we will be travelling on a 747, upperdeck, 2-4-1 reward seats..........happy days!
It was interesting watching the two BA57's on flightradar flying down to JNB yesterday evening, the delayed one from the previous day was leading the way. Just hope that they had extra staff on at JNB to cope with the increased pax.

mjh0

Yes, there will be payload/performance penalties out of JNB due to the density altitude - the "hot and high" that you refer to - that would impact trying to depart on a long haul flight in the middle of the day.

Couple that with useful aircraft utilisation, the minimal time zone difference, and the length of flight, that's why aircraft from Europe tend to sit all day in South Africa before flying back. For example, if you turned an aircraft arriving at 0630 in JNB and sent it back to the UK at say 0900/0930, it would still not arrive back in the UK until 1900/2000 (depending on time of year), and that's quite late to make the evening bank of connections elsewhere. The aircraft is also limited on what/where it can fly next, if you assume it needs 3 hours to be turned at home base, so likelihood is that it will overnight in the UK instead.

So, however you slice it, it's spending 12 hours on the tarmac somewhere, it's whether it's in the UK (arguably it could usefully receive base maintenance overnight), or downroute, but with much wider connecting flight options on arrival at London.

salut0

It seems like the JNB situation is similar to what AA (and other US airlines?) does with flights between NYC and GIG/GRU. Plane sits on ground all day in South America and flies overnight back to New York. Similarly long flight (although more like 10 not quite 12 hours!) and minimal time difference.

But interestingly I wonder: in 2008 I flew CPT-LHR departing in the early morning (8am?). Has that flight been cancelled since then?

CloudGazer

CPT is also not able to handle A380s

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GTR56

Checkin was pretty chaotic at JNB this evening with 3 A380s going out with two having almost identical flight numbers.

it hasn’t been helped by the lounge staff announcing boarding for BA54 and then clarifying it’s BA54 from yesterday as today’s has a 1.5 hour delay.

mjh0

They will be the crew that didn't fly last night.

Globaliser

When we had a 24-hour delay on a BA57 about 18 months ago, that's exactly what happened.

Extrapolating to this week, if the crew that was supposed to be operating BA57/19MAR also operated the delayed flight, then they arrived at JNB on 21MAR at 0708, and will be expecting to operate BA54/21MAR as originally rostered - and the required rest period between those flights may be why BA54/21MAR is delayed this evening.The crew that didn't fly last night were probably expecting to operate BA54/20MAR.

Consequently they will probably be operating the delayed flight - the delayed BA54 that's been called first - as planned, but a fraction under 24 hours late.

Flame3601

Another factor would be stand cost time would be cheap as chips compared in CPT/JNB to LHR. Keeping an aircraft on stand for 12hrs for the sake of it at LHR wouldn't be a cheap decision i assume.

bermyandy

Does anyone know the flight number of the ‘extra’ flight out of Johannesburg this evening?

Pilot37

mjh0

Ah, yes, see where you're coming from now. Not sure how that works out with rest periods, flight time limitations, etc.

Globaliser

The crew that was already in JNB would simply have had about 24 hours' extra rest in JNB, about which they would probably have few complaints. Their rest after getting back to London would obviously be curtailed by the same 24 hours, but I suspect it's easier to shuffle rosters etc and cover with standby crew at base.

The cabin crew that was delayed reaching JNB would have had a much harder time. When it happened to us, they said that they hadn't themselves got into bed in their Heathrow hotel until about 3 am. They then had to work all night on the flight that did operate, and then try to sleep as much as they can during their body clock day before in effect immediately working another night shift back to London. They were real troopers and appeared to shrug it off when I offered sympathy, but it seemed like something that they were understandably not looking forward to.

ISTR that the pilots operate to a different schedule on JNB, so the effect on them may not have been quite so severe.

This experience reminded me that on the occasions that a crew turns up for a particular flight looking exhausted and clearly not enjoying what they're doing, there may be some good and understandable reasons for it. We passengers are often quick to pass judgement on individuals on the rather arrogant assumption that we know everything that there is to know in order to form an opinion, when in fact there may be a lot that we don't even know that we don't know. The same goes for short delays like the eventual delay to BA54/21MAR - 84 minutes on departure, 53 minutes on arrival.

MFCC

This is true, the flight crew did not return with the cabin crew.

LUFTY

Looks like G-XLEC is fixed and is scheduled for the BA57 to Johannesburg tomorrow (12/04/2024).

HGOLI

At least BA55 is now operating the 777, so some hope it will have fewer delays/canx!