Missie
Are not all international flights between North America and Australia late. When I flew Quantas many years ago the flight was delayed 10 hours. Speaking to several of my friends who have been to Australia this year and flown by several different airlines, they have all said the same thing, delayed flights. Maybe it is because it is such a long trip.

I have only flown with Qantas in & out of the US & departure times have been fine. I do know we did fly out late on one flight, the reason was the fact we were in a very long line up to the runway, the plane had left the departure gate on time. The flight time is only 12 hours out of LA so I don't know what the problem could be except a flow on effect eg if it's late getting in then the out bound will be late & so on & so on?????

Cheers
Spooky

quote:

Originally posted by mid life traveller:
Missie
Are not all international flights between North America and Australia late. When I flew Quantas many years ago the flight was delayed 10 hours. Speaking to several of my friends who have been to Australia this year and flown by several different airlines, they have all said the same thing, delayed flights. Maybe it is because it is such a long trip.

MLT: We were two hours late departing Sydney because Air Canada new ticketing desk was being used for the fist time that day and someone in Toronto forgot to flick the switch to accept electronic ticketing.

Departing Vancouver we were again 2 1/2 hours late due to USA Customs & Immigration.

I have never had any problems with late International flights to Europe or return(more than the average 10 or 20 minutes).

quote:

Originally posted by mid life traveller:
Missie
Are not all international flights between North America and Australia late. When I flew Quantas many years ago the flight was delayed 10 hours. Speaking to several of my friends who have been to Australia this year and flown by several different airlines, they have all said the same thing, delayed flights. Maybe it is because it is such a long trip.

From the reports I read, most of the major delays seem to be happening on flights originating in North America flying across the Pacific to here or New Zealand, not on those originating on this side of the Pacific. See travel tales posted by Charlene/6dogs and Yvon, amongst others.
Long trip? To us LA to Sydney is not that much different to the Singapore to London leg of the trip that many Aussies and Kiwis have to undergo when flying to Europe. On top of that, they still have to get to Singapore from their home city, which means another 8hrs or so flight before the Ausies even get to Singapore and 10 1/2 or 11 hrs for the Kiwis! As I said on another topic, we are nations of tough travellers.

My biggest concern is transiting LAX on arrival in the US, if you’re getting off no problems. On my flight 2 years ago I saw people miss their connecting flight as there were only 2 people working in Customs dealing with travellers with passports other than US/Canada. Fortunately I had over 3 hours. On my recent trip they had 4 people doing all the fingerprinting/photographing. It took ages and the queues were very long.

On my recent return flight on Qantas from JFK, we were all aboard and then delayed 2 hours supposedly due to the sea fog rolling in and having to wait in a queue. At least they put on the National 9 News! The flight attendants said “don’t worry, we only have problems if we are delayed for more than 3 hours”. Sure enough they held the connecting flights in LAX and flew a bit faster in the night (as if you’d notice) to have us disembarking the terminal in Melbourne on time

Yaya

I have had:

To North America:

Two flights to Vancouver which were on time and one which was 24 hours late due to engine failure on the aircraft at Honolulu.

One flight to Calgary which was on time.

One flight to Toronto which was about 3 hours late due to a cancelled flight.

From North America:

Four flights from Vancouver which were on time

One flight from Toronto which was on time.

Summary:
Out of 10 flights to and from North America (5 of which were via LAX) 8 were on time and 2 were late. That’s 80% on time which has been my experience and the 2 two delayed flights were ex Oz.

My nephew travelled with Cathay Pacific from Vancouver to Hong Kong last February. He wasn't aware that the flight originated in New York and because of bad weather, likely a snow storm the flight was delayed by many hours. It was supposed to leave around midnight or 1 am but did not leave until very early in the morning maybe 6 or 7 am.
Subsequently he missed his flight from Hong Kong to Sydney and had to wait 9 hours for the next plane. In the end he missed 2 nights sleep.
It took 13 hours Vancouver to Hong Kong.

Marie: I wonder if Banjo caught up with your nephew Erik on the cruise ship, I notice the ship is now back in Alaskan waters.

Is this the same nephew that had trouble with his flights to Sydney?

Missie, this is the same nephew. He did not mention meeting Banjo. I have not spoken to him.
He is on the way to Alaska now and finishes his work term in the middle of July. He did not get any time off in Victoria and only a few hours off in Vancouver. My sister hopes to meet him next time he is in Vancouver.

Marie: What a life this young man has, how lucky is he cruising in Alaska, it was this time last year that I was on that very same cruise, how time flies.

Missie, I have been looking at the web cam and they are having glorious sunny weather. Maybe there is less rain in spring. We cruised the inside passage late last August and nearly had rain all the time.
He has to work very hard, shift work and gets little time off but it is quite an experience.

quote:

Originally posted by Marie56:
Missie, I have been looking at the web cam and they are having glorious sunny weather. Maybe there is less rain in spring. We cruised the inside passage late last August and nearly had rain all the time.
He has to work very hard, shift work and gets little time off but it is quite an experience.

Marie: it will instil a good work ethic in him and prepare him for the future.

I had glorious weather this time last year on the same cruise.

I'm a little behind on this post, but I do have yet another agreement with Missie, in that yes, Air Canada needs to update some of their planes. To be fair, they do have some new fantastic ones although I have never actually been on one. The ones that I have been on, at least twice a year are in horrible shape, and none too clean either.

Shannon

Air Canada is supposed to be introducing daily non-stop flights from Vancouver to Sydney with a Boeing 777 begining in December. This should be a significant improvement over the previous planes and a stop over in Honolulu.

quote:

Originally posted by joe d:
Air Canada is supposed to be introducing daily non-stop flights from Vancouver to Sydney with a Boeing 777 begining in December. This should be a significant improvement over the previous planes and a stop over in Honolulu.

joe d: Sounds fantastic, anything to avoid USA Customs in Hawaii is a good thing. I found the service on Air Canada to be very good, but I am blowed if I know how those rattly old planes stayed in the air.