Same route big flight time difference
 

I am booked to fly DOH-BCN on the 12th October. The plane recently changed from a 787 to an A330-300 and the flight time now shows as 8h 15m

The return leg on the 17th October has changed from a 787 to an A340 but the flight time is only 5h 25m.

I know the Jetstream can have an effect on flight time, but a 3 hour difference seems a little excessive. Are the A330 really that much slower? Are Qatar planning an unscheduled stop somewhere?

I’m not sure I'm looking forward to an 8 hour flight on an A330, the business seat seems rather cramped:(

To me it's 5h25 block time which sounds wrong. Are you sure they didn't miscalculate time differences?

Google Flights has DOH-BCN at 7h 15m and BCN-DOH at 6h 25m


It seems something when wrong at Qatar while calculating the times, silly me for assuming they would get their own flight times right.

Equally silly for you to assume that this is anything other than a simple one-off mistake, no? You make mistakes from time to time, right? Please tell me that I'm not the only one!!

Herostratus as orbitmic points out this is almost certainly a typical miscalculation. After all it is October month and European Summertime ends Sunday 29 October. This happens every year in the month before summer/winter time changes. To confuse you even more SYD changes to Summertime Sunday 1 October!

It is also interesting to note that at least until two years ago the IFE on the B787 showed arrival time at a destination in UTC not local time. This would have the reverse effect so you can be sure that this can be attributed to human error.

My experience is that QR is incapable of calculating flight times and getting departure or arrival times correct when there is a DST change in one country. So far I have two trips booked for the October - March season and on checking manage my booking I saw that the departure from my home airport had been brought forward by an hour since booking, the arrival time was more or less the same and the block time was the same. The same thing happened earlier this year when I travelled to Sydney and the actual arrival time was an hour later than it was shown as when I booked.

My advice, check MMB regularly as QR will not advise you of a timing change.

On the off chance you are my wife posting - No I never make mistakes;)


I though this may be the case but BCN is still on summertime when I travel.


No DST change for BCN when I am travelling. One thing I missed was that all the times for my flights changed, mostly 10-30 minutes but all are different. I had thought the only change was the aircraft. There was no notification of these time changes but they'll happily send me an email every time I change my seat.

I know aircraft type are never guaranteed for Qatar but it is slightly deflating to go from 4 legs on the 787 to two on the 777, one on the A330 and one on the A340. I guess on the positive side they are all still jets rather than props!

Herostratus please remember that QR are constantly adjusting flight times to suit weather conditions, routing etc. There appears to go panic in the timetable schedulers in March and October because of the Summer/winter time change overs. This happens every year.

They usually do a good job but these two months are their 'Silly season'! :D

On the flip side, there is still plenty of time for QR to change the aircraft type again!

M

It wasn't the schedule change that was the issue, more that the change of planes led to a three hour flight length difference between the outward and return legs. I though perhaps some of the more daring A340 pilots went for a below the radar dash across KSA while the nervous nellie A330 pilots took the long way round which would account for the flight length difference. But it seems to be just a time calculation error.

One can hope!

What are the true flight times DOH-MEL-DOH? My booking says 13 h 50 outbound and 15 h 00 inbound. Would that be correct?

ffay005 that sounds perfectly correct. Most air currents such as the Jetstream blow West to East. So flying West-East you have a tail wind and East-West a headwind.

That is the simple explanation the full explanation is very complex and includes such factors as season, hemisphere, weather features such the Monsoons etc. etc.

Huh. I always assumed that the discrepancy between eastwards/westwards flights was due to earth rotation (which, I mean, I guess it indirectly is, since it is what is causing jetstreams in the first place), but never took a second to actually think about it. Now I realize how stupid it is — planes are obviously still very much in the atmosphere of the earth and are therefore rotating with it...

Exactly, and the answer is sometimes counter-intuitive. For example, I fly CX between BOS/JFK/ORD and HKG from time to time. So, BOS/JFK to HKG frequently goes NNE from takeoff up to near the Arctic Circle, then more or less due east to northern China, then almost due south through China to HKG. But ORD to HKG sometimes travels eastbound and sometimes westbound, IME it's about 50/50. It all depends.

Similarly on the return, HKG-ORD can cross the Pacific by going up over Alaska, but also can go almost due east across the mid-Pacific. HKG to JFK/BOS typically takes a more northern route, but I've approached BOS, for example, both heading south from Canada through northern NH/VT and from the west, having crossed into the U.S. near SEA.

I think one of the more extreme ones is DOH-TYO 9 hours whereas TYO-DOH is 12 hours! It surprised me the first time I flew this route!

Also, on MMB after a minor flight time change my TXL-DOH flight is listed as 4 hours 50 minutes. I went onto MyFlights which lists the flight as 5 hours 50 minutes.... I assume this is another error?