I working so hard for so long on OW business award tix spanning four continents in a more than month long trip and then flying it, I think I know why the flight times keep bouncing around.

I think the OW schedule is posted using GMT based numbers, and they fail to take automatically shift with the various daylight savings times that countries use.

Came to this conclusion flying into New Zealand from Australia on October 6, and conversing with the Qantas Lounge person for a few minutes. The flight I rode has had the same scheduled arrival time for more than a year, but I saw it bounce around on the schedules.

Then learned that to add confusion to the mix, New Zealand went into Daylight Saving time a week before, but Australia wouldn't be starting theirs for another two weeks, adding to the accordian action of the flight schedules as posted.

Anyone else notice this and concur; or just comment?

Thanks,

Steve

No, the OW schedule is on the 24-hour time format. And all arrivals and departures are in the local time. I have seen listings of the same flight in the schedule more than once when the times change. Also, most airlines keep the times constant for their home country. Since NZ is not the home of QF, they will change the NZ arrival/departure times rather than in NZ. An example to look at is the JFK-NRT schedules when DST ends in the USA. Note the differences between AA and JAL.

Take nearly any place, look at the ETD/ETA for a flight, then look at some other airline's codeshare for that metal, and the OW timetable will list different times for what is in reality the same flight. It happens all the time, at any time of the year. I gave up trying to understand it a long time ago.

The schedules change all the time, not just for daylight saving. Having said that, this year was more disruptive than usual for trans-tasman flight times due to NZ changing the date which daylight saving started, with only a few months notice. Caused many problems with people's calendars/diaries as the software had the normal date of changeover not the new date.

I wasn't aware of that, and it wasn't mentioned by the staff in the Qantas Lounge in Christchurch.

Why did NZ change the date they switch daylight savings? Was it similar to that of the US, to get the perceived advantage started sooner?

Thanks,

Steve

Yes. Some politician just thought it would be a good idea