Flight length difference from east coast?
 

Researching flights to Hawaii for next summer, I noticed what seems like a large difference in flight lengths leaving from either JFK (Hawaiian) or IAD (United). A sample of flights next June shows:

JFK-HNL on Hawaiian flight time of 12:30.
IAD-NHL on United flight time of 10:25.

I realize IAD is farther west than JFK, but a 2 hour difference seems like a lot. Is this correct?

Thank you!

Tony

Part of the difference may be the amount of baked-in taxi time between the two airports - I believe at JFK they expect very long waits for take-off... Also difference in equipment? Different planes have different cruising speeds...

Seems like HA has added some serious schedule padding there. They have the same flight blocked at ~11 hours in October of this year.

Thank you for the responses. It does seems like HA has baked in a fair amount of additional time. I felt like departing from IAD should save about 45 - 60 minutes, not 2 hours.

Makes the transition to "Island Time" easier.

Note that Hawaii does not observe daylight savings. As a result time difference between JFK and HNL is 6 hours during daylight savings and 5 hours during standard times. (flight time on flight 51 JFK - HNL is 11:30 in December)

1070
 

According to Webflyer, there is 160 mile difference in distance on those routes. At 500mph, that should only account for 15 or 20 minutes. For the two hour difference, it would take over 1000 miles probably.

I think you stuck a extra zero in that number. From Great Circle Mapper
IAD-HNL 4817 mi
JFK-HNL 4983 mi

You are right, a little fat fingering there. I did edit to correct.

If you add an extra 2 hours to the flight time, you won't be late as often.

Flightaware might tell the real story.

Hey, jw3putt, is the mainland STILL doing that time thing where they change their clock by an hour. What a waste of time. Everybody, set your clocks 1/2 instead and leave them there forever.

Clocks? We don't need no stinkin clocks.

The published schedule shows block times (gate-to-gate roughly). You are looking at air miles. Apples & oranges.