I'm not sure if this is the forum for this, but I wanted to see if anyone has any advice on my situation.

I'm trying to find a flight that will allow me to get from Paris to Vancouver no later than the afternoon on october 31st. There's only one flight I've found that looks good, a delta flight that arrives around 4pm. Other than that there seem to be lots of flights on various airlines leaving Paris in the afternoon and arriving in Vancouver at 9-11PM (with 1 connection).

So I guess my first question is, is this really the only flight that arrives before late evening? It doesn't leave particularly early in the morning, I guess I'm surprised that I can't find anything else that comes in earlier.

Second question...are there no red eyes? I haven't seen any red eyes from CDG to AUS or YVR. I'm wondering if I'm missing some airlines in my searches. I've been using kayak.com and my company's amex booking search. Are there other sites or specific airlines I should check?

I wont be 100% confirmed to book until next week sometime, and the prices are increasing rapidly...so I will likely need other options beyond that one delta flight.

Thanks!

Hi maracle,

Weclome to FT!^

There are no red eye transatantic flights .

Thre is a 0730 AF flight(AF 1080) ( changing at LHR onto the 1205 Air Canada AC 855 flight ) that would get you into YVR at 1505

or 0950 AF 1618 to FRA changing onto AC 9101( op by LH) at 1250 getting into YVR at 1505.

( both on expedia.co.uk)

Regards

TBS

All flights from Europe to the US are dayflights. However, to the West Coast, there is also the option via Asia that there are overnight flights. The flights will be slightly longer and I suspect may be more expensive.

There is also KL681 from AMS to YVR leaving at 3:35pm arriving at 5:30pm.

DL makes you change in Salt Lake City which means you have to clear US immigration and customs with 1 hour 5 mins connection. I would personally never do this.

I would go with the FRA or AMS connection for ease of you remain within the same terminal building but have to cross from the Schengan to non Schengen parts of the airport. The AC option via LHR means you have to get from T2 to T3 and LHR is prone to delays like JFK.

There is also a 10:05am CDG to Montreal via Air Transat connecting to Air Canada which gets into YVR at 4:35pm so same timings as the Delta flight. Cannot comment how good Air Transat is or if 1 hour 10 mins is suffcient to clear immigration and customs at Montreal. A bit tight.

If you can depart CDG on the 30th, there is an interesting AC option via LHR: dep LHR at 19h05 on 30-10 arriving YYZ at 23h25, overnight in YYZ and choose from almost hourly dep to YVR on the 31st. RT LHR-YVR-LHR is currently just under CAD1500/USD1300 on AC.
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13F

Another option is Lufthansa (CDG-FRA-YVR) - gets you in about 3pm. Or a third is to fly DL to JFK and take the Cathay night flight from JFK to YVR. If you are a US or Canadian passport holder, it might not be too hellish if I absolutely must be available early afternoon. Wouldn't think about this option if I was travelling on another passport.

There are 2 LHR-JFK flights that leave around 8pm and arrive 10-11pm. They are not overnight flights, but they fly in the dark skies.

You arrive in New York just in time to go to bed

Yes. Though I am not sure how they classify these flights. Non-overnight nighters? Would seem rather strange to call these dayflights.

Have you tried using the "multi-city" function of your company's AMEX booking search engine?

There are no direct flights between CDG and YVR!

You will have to try multiple cities to connect at.

I don't know which company you work for, but the company where I work for actually discourages the use of AMEX's booking search engine and asks us to phone AMEX directly if international trips are to be booked. We only use the AMEX booking engine for domestic / North American flights.

I checked on all of those flights, the only other one that looked like it would work out for me was the Lufthansa flight which is ideal since it arrived into Vancouver earliest and also my flight over to Paris would arrive earlier than I've seen any other carrier get in. The fare is ok right now too. I'm still waiting on my boss to give the final goahead to book these right now, so I decided to book the Delta fare since it is refundable within 24 hours. Lufthansa doesn't say on their website and their reservations desk couldn't pull up the same itinerary (I guess they don't have access to all partner airline flights that can show up on the website). The agent told me that if I called immediately after booking online he could check on the rules and refund it right away if it didn't have a cancellation period. That seemed a bit too risky to me to rely on his word there, so I'll just hope the fare hasn't changed before I can get the trip confirmed tomorrow.

Thanks for all the great info everyone! ^^^

EDIT - We use AXIOM and are supposed to book all travel through it. It does give multi city options for this route, but it's quite expensive. No one really knows if I book it myself, so I often do...I suppose I may call them to see if they can get the lufthansa flight tomorrow, best not to tempt fate if possible

For the poster who was concerned about a 1 hr 5 min connection at SLC after the flight from CDG: SLC does not have all that many flights that need to clear ICE there. There is the one CDG-SLC flight, and then the occasional flights from Mexico. I think the CDG-SLC flight would be the only flight needing ICE clearance at the time. SLC is a very easy airport to connect through, probably the best connecting airport in the US. The flight from CDG arrives usually in the D concourse, and the flights to YVR (actually a Skywest CRJ flight) leaves from the E concourse. It's a quick walk between the two.

You coudl also fly AF40 CDG-SEA (arrives at 1255) and take a connecting QX (AS) flight or drive up.

Air Transat has a nonstop flight out of London Gatwick that gets into YVR at 14:10.

http://www.airtransat.co.uk

Note that they likely don't interline, so you'd probably have to collect your bags at LGW and then check them in again.

Transat also has the advantage of 'Club Class' - A pseudo-business class upgrade that's very good value.

in any case, all US-bound flights from YVR will preclear customs and immigration, so the 1h05 cnx in SLC will be no different than arriving from a domestic US flight.

???

The poster is discussing CDG -> SLC -> YVR, and the short layover in SLC, not YVR -> SLC. The fact that US-bound flights departing YVR pre-clear US customs and immigration isn't relevant (is it?).

Cheers,
Geoff in Vancouver