WESTBOUND flights
 

Just got off a flight YYZ - YVR and flight time was 5:10 compared to normal 4:20, pilot said it was headwinds and he also said flight to YYZ are early by 45 mins....just found this very weird.

Regards,
Empress

Empress
Not at all strange. I have been doing short E-W hops in the past few weeks and have heard that a few times.

Between now and mid November (then again next April-May) the jet stream will be stronger. This is the prevailing northern hemisphere wind that blows from west to east. Last Saturday, on ORD-YVR, we were late by about 30 minutes due to 100+ knot headwinds, even though we had taken a much more southerly route to avoid the worst of it. Had we gone directly through it, we would have experienced headwinds > 150 knots.

Regards,

Ken Hamer

Very regular occurence....

Dorian

A moderately interesting graphical view of this is available on Boeing's website...showing the 'range' of their offereings:
www.boeing.com/commercial/767-400er/rng.html

You can see how the range is shorter on westerly bound flight by the 'squished' circle.

Dorian

Recently the winds have been very strong,

The in-flight time for YVR-YYZ is currently only 3 and a half hours !!! Unfortunately the flip flight is running around 5 hours.

Generally the YVR-YYZ is scheduled for around 4h 20min (total time) and the YYZ-YVR is scheduled for around 5h

Wow, those are some crazy times! Glad I'm not doing YYZ-YVR anytime soon (I hope)!

Dorian

This is also why some of the longest-haul flights operate only "seasonally."

Unfortunately the situation isn't improving anytime soon. My roomate flew YYZ-SEA last night and in-flight time was > 5h.

My flight PDX-ATL last week was 3:47 flying time, with 65-75 mph tailwinds.

The shortest direct ATL-PDX, ATL-LAX or EWR-PDX has been 5:15-5:30.

A few years ago, on a direct BWI-LAX, the headwinds were so strong we stopped to refuel in Linclon, NE.

Try a whopping 5 hours and 47 minutes for EWR-SFO last week. I would've NOT been a happy camper in coach.

Wow....talk about getting your money's worth. You can almost make it to London in that time.

Regards,
Empress

Are the winds blowing from the West stronger at a certain time of the year? What season?

I have many trips in Jan/Feb, East to West long hauls.

Actually, Ken explaned it pretty well above.

Regards,
Empress

Last November, I had an IAD-SFO on a 777 that took 6 hrs. 15 mins...The flight home took 3 hrs. 50 mins...