Int'l fliers could get clocked by early jump to daylight savings time

International fliers could get clocked by early jump to daylight
savings time

USATODAY Today in the Sky
By Ben Mutzabaugh

This year's earlier-than-usual arrival of daylight savings time in the
USA could spell trouble for travelers flying on international routes,
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports. The paper
writes that "thanks to an impending disconnect between European and
U.S. clocks, cross-continental fliers whose trips entail connections
within or beyond the U.S. may find it harder to get a convenient
connection and may need to schedule long layovers... "

For example, the Journal cites connections on American Airlines for
passengers traveling from Madrid through Miami. The Madrid flight
typically lands in Miami at 3:05 p.m. local time, but - with the USA's
early jump ahead - it will temporarily land at 4:05 p.m. local time
until Europe also springs its clocks forward. For fliers, that makes
catching the 4:35 p.m. flight to Houston - usually not a problem - all
but impossible. Another tight connection looms for Madrid travelers
hoping to connect to to Bogota, Colombia, on AA's 5:20 p.m. flight.
The usual 2-hour layover on that route now gets whittled down to about
an hour.

"So," the Journal asks, "why can't U.S. airlines simply move up the
departure time of their flights originating in Europe, ensuring that
passengers can get better connections?" The paper notes that doing so
"is difficult because of strict 'use it or lose it' rules regarding
time slots at European airports. U.S. airlines have little flexibility
to adjust their schedules because if they did, they could risk losing
control over a valuable time slot at busy hubs, according to the Air
Transport Association, a trade organization for U.S. airlines."
Similar scheduling problems also exist in Asia, experts say.

How big a problem will air travelers really face once U.S. clocks make
their early jump ahead on Sunday? John Hansman, a professor of
aeronautics and the head of MIT's International Center for Air
Transportation, sums it up like this: "Any change creates some sort of
disturbance in the system. How significant is this compared with a
snowstorm at JFK? I would say this is not as big of a deal."

Posted at 08:08 AM/ET, Mar 09, 2007
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/16702682

On Mar 9, 1:12 pm, "auzerais" wrote:
International fliers could get clocked by early jump to daylight
savings time

USATODAY Today in the Sky
By Ben Mutzabaugh

This year's earlier-than-usual arrival of daylight savings time in the
USA could spell trouble for travelers flying on international routes,
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports. The paper
writes that "thanks to an impending disconnect between European and
U.S. clocks, cross-continental fliers whose trips entail connections
within or beyond the U.S. may find it harder to get a convenient
connection and may need to schedule long layovers... "

For example, the Journal cites connections on American Airlines for
passengers traveling from Madrid through Miami. The Madrid flight
typically lands in Miami at 3:05 p.m. local time, but - with the USA's
early jump ahead - it will temporarily land at 4:05 p.m. local time
until Europe also springs its clocks forward. For fliers, that makes
catching the 4:35 p.m. flight to Houston - usually not a problem - all
but impossible. Another tight connection looms for Madrid travelers
hoping to connect to to Bogota, Colombia, on AA's 5:20 p.m. flight.
The usual 2-hour layover on that route now gets whittled down to about
an hour.

"So," the Journal asks, "why can't U.S. airlines simply move up the
departure time of their flights originating in Europe, ensuring that
passengers can get better connections?" The paper notes that doing so
"is difficult because of strict 'use it or lose it' rules regarding
time slots at European airports. U.S. airlines have little flexibility
to adjust their schedules because if they did, they could risk losing
control over a valuable time slot at busy hubs, according to the Air
Transport Association, a trade organization for U.S. airlines."
Similar scheduling problems also exist in Asia, experts say.

How big a problem will air travelers really face once U.S. clocks make
their early jump ahead on Sunday? John Hansman, a professor of
aeronautics and the head of MIT's International Center for Air
Transportation, sums it up like this: "Any change creates some sort of
disturbance in the system. How significant is this compared with a
snowstorm at JFK? I would say this is not as big of a deal."

Posted at 08:08 AM/ET, Mar 09, 2007http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/16702682

That URL should be
http://blogs.usatoday.com/sky/2007/03/time.html

"auzerais" wrote in message
oups.com...
International fliers could get clocked by early jump to daylight
savings time

USATODAY Today in the Sky
By Ben Mutzabaugh

This year's earlier-than-usual arrival of daylight savings time in the
USA could spell trouble for travelers flying on international routes,
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports. The paper
writes that "thanks to an impending disconnect between European and
U.S. clocks, cross-continental fliers whose trips entail connections
within or beyond the U.S. may find it harder to get a convenient
connection and may need to schedule long layovers... "

It must have been a really slow news day when they printed this.

tim