London to Edinburgh

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Condi

Original Poster:

17,089 posts

170 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
Why does the flight south take longer than the flight north?

tvrolet

4,251 posts

281 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
They factor in the inevitable delays holding to get in to Heathrow. If they schedule the flights assuming delays then it's brownie points for arriving early. The scheduled flight times have also increased over the years - maybe 20 years ago the flight time was scheduled at 1:15, then it went to 1:20, then 1:25 and so on as delays/holding got worse.

Morning flights are also typically scheduled to take longer than afternoon flights (at least they used to be) for much the same reason. I used to fly to Heathrow from Edinburgh every week and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we got a direct approach to LHR in the mornings. Similarly I could count on the fingers of one have the number of times we were put into a hold coming in to Edinburgh.

...or it could just be it's trying to push uphill going down South, and it slides back downhill coming North.

colin79666

1,808 posts

112 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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Not certain but if you take a look on Flight Radar the routing the flight South may actually be longer in distance due to routing differences.

Looking at a couple of flights tonight between London City and Edinburgh (and the reverse) the northbound flight is coming straight up where as southbound is going towards Glasgow and down the west coast before swinging East south of Manchester to the east coast over Essex and back in again (like a backwards Z).

North:


South:


Edited by colin79666 on Tuesday 16th October 20:24


Edited by colin79666 on Tuesday 16th October 20:25

djc206

12,250 posts

124 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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A few reasons.

1: prevailing wind, generally it’s a south westerly so flying south you’ve got a headwind

2: London airports are busy and Scottish airports aren’t so the chances of holding are greater, expect an average of 10 mins for Heathrow

3: Route, for London city expect a ridiculous extended route thanks to the last London airspace project that means you overfly your destination, get a tour of Kent and then land. For Heathrow or Gatwick you fly down daventry west so it’s a bit longer than the east side routing you enjoy on the way up

alangla

4,723 posts

180 months

Wednesday 17th October 2018
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Is there not some ground holding at both airports as well? From memory, the last few times I did Heathrow to Glasgow, it felt like we spent longer driving round West London than we did on flying. When I've done it in the reverse direction, there's been times its sat at the gate at Glasgow with the doors shut waiting for NATS to allow it to go because Heathrow was either too busy or weather meant the flow rate at Heathrow was reduced.

Anyway - an example of the effect of in-flight holds from this morning's rush hour.

Edinburgh to Heathrow - https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ba1435#... 16 minutes late away and 76 minutes in the air. You can see how crap a timekeeper this flight is and the amount of slack built in from the history, also how widely the flight time varies.

Edinburgh to Luton - https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/u212#1e... - 18 late away, 60 minutes in the air. Again, poor departure timekeeper, probably due to Edinburgh being busy in the morning. In-flight times look a lot more consistent though. 22nd & 29th of September look like good runs!

djc206

12,250 posts

124 months

Wednesday 17th October 2018
quotequote all
alangla said:
Is there not some ground holding at both airports as well? From memory, the last few times I did Heathrow to Glasgow, it felt like we spent longer driving round West London than we did on flying. When I've done it in the reverse direction, there's been times its sat at the gate at Glasgow with the doors shut waiting for NATS to allow it to go because Heathrow was either too busy or weather meant the flow rate at Heathrow was reduced.

Anyway - an example of the effect of in-flight holds from this morning's rush hour.

Edinburgh to Heathrow - https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ba1435#... 16 minutes late away and 76 minutes in the air. You can see how crap a timekeeper this flight is and the amount of slack built in from the history, also how widely the flight time varies.

Edinburgh to Luton - https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/u212#1e... - 18 late away, 60 minutes in the air. Again, poor departure timekeeper, probably due to Edinburgh being busy in the morning. In-flight times look a lot more consistent though. 22nd & 29th of September look like good runs!
It’s not too common to hold in the air for Luton except late in the evening when the Ryanair fleet return en masse which would explain the consistency. Flying into Heathrow airborne holding can hit 20 minutes without too much effort as even the slightest reduction in landing rate causes delays to build very quickly, that can be anything from early or late arrivals off the ocean, wind, visibility, temporary loss of a runway, changing ends etc etc.

Like you say ground delay at Heathrow can often be quite lengthy as everyone queues to depart. It desperately needs that extra runway.