Was playing around on flightaware.com and saw some interesting routes being flown by CO tonight. For example, you can see flight numbers 348, 268, 468, and 681. Most of these are EWR-west coast and assume it has a lot to do with strong headwinds as the flights are each an hour or so late. I looked at similar flights from UA and others, though, and didn't see their flights heading way up into Canada. Maybe flightaware is screwy. Just thought it was interesting.

Strong headwinds had a DL MD88 from CVG to PHX stop for gas at OKC the other day. As I checked further, I saw several AA flts. taking both extreme northern and southern routes from JFK to LAX. AA 1 showed an enroute time of 7:09...ouch. Every other flt. on that route was at least 6:35 and the AA redeye LAX-JFK made it back in 3:48....pretty fast.

Lately the jetstream has dipped significantly, producing headwinds in excess of 160kts for westbound travel, causing major headaches especially for flights headed to Southern California, LAS, and PHX.

My colleague's EWR-LAX on Thursday took well over 6 hours (738) but did not require a fuel stop. A320s, however, are being severely limited on westbound transcons and many flights over the last few days have been stopping en route to take on fuel. The A319 fares a little bit better, but JetBlue, with their all-A320 longer haul operation (very heavy as well, with 166 seats) has been gettin hammered. Heck, DL's MD-88s are barely able to make PHX from ATL! It's times like these I appreciate the fact that the 737NG has longer legs than its counterparts, and I'm sure the winglets don't hurt either.

The airlines are adapting as best they can, DL and AA are trying to swap 738s for MD-8x on the routes most affected, and UA flyers may see 757s on some regular A320 flights for the time being.

I flew:

IAH - BFL (westbound to Bakersfield, CA) = 4 hours airtime on 2/16
BFL - IAH = 3 hours airtime on 2/18

Add 30-40 minutes in-seat at IAH and the outbound just bites...

FWIW

DLM

(original post deleted)

These strong headwinds are crazy, but it would be better if it was the other way around (for the EWR-HNL flights )

Ah, another BFL flyer! I love taking my seat in the RJ for that long flight. Every other Thursday - it is a real treat! At least this weekend I'll be headed to SFO on a "big" plane - 737 Hope to see those headwinds die down a little for the ride up there...

-CLG

I was on CO 47 AMS-IAH yesterday, and we came in over Northern Michigan, then South Bend, Indy, Memphis, Shreveport, then into IAH. Most of the time I'm on this flight (at least 3x a year) we come in directly over ORD, with an absolutely awesome view of Chicago (depending of the weather), and sometimes a great view of frozen Northern Canada when possible.

I was wondering why the different route, but there was bad weather in North Texas yesterday, so I can understand.

NW89 SEA-HNL Sunday morning was almost an hour early. Good thing, since I don't want to be running short of fuel on 753 ETOPS routings.

RTS

I flew EWR-LAX on Thrusday also and can confirm it was about 6.5 hours. We were well up over Minnesota at one point.

My return trip last night/this morning (LAX-EWR 1803) made it in 4:02.