Europe to JNB...

[wannabe7]

Hi,
Recently went to JNB with Virgin and noted that all the flights from Europe fly over night arriving 1st thing in the morning and are then all towed to remote stands untill the eve when they all go back to Europe.
Virgin, BA, SAA, Lufthansa etc all seemed to do the same thing.

Is there any particular reason why all the airlines chose to keep their A/C on the ground for over 12 hrs?

Thanks!

[akerosid]

Various airlines have tried alterations on this, to improve utilisation; Swiss does (or certainly did, at one stage) have a morning departure from ZRH, which allows a short turnaround at JNB. Virgin also has some daylight returns from CPT.

I guess one of the issues is that they want to maximise connections (where can you connect if you get into LHR at about 9pm at night?) and there may well be a pax preference issue.

It must be a pain for airlines to have an asset on the ground all day, but I guess the point is that they do try various other scheduling options, but most still choose the long day stop in JNB.

[MAN777]

Its the same at this end, LHR has 3 SAA 747s sat on the ground all day.

[Harrier46]

Could it be for crew rest reasons?

[Sultan Ismail]

Can I suggest a possibility, as Akerosid has mentioned earlier, arriving in Europe at 9pm doesn't give good opportunities for transfer and onward travel, but consider also the takeoff time, it would be at Noon, at 5,500 feet ++ and in Summer at 30 degrees ++, could limit load factors.

It has always been this way, certainly since the '60's when the Sultan first flew that route, when there was always an intermediate stop, Kinshasa for Swissair, Nairobi for BOAC, and Sal for SAA, oh the good old days of apartheid, when nobody wanted to know South Africa, but gold is gold....

[126,7]

Swiss used to fly to Cape Town and stood there for the day until they did the day flights. Got to JNB in the evening, turned around and flew back. Now they do the night flights again but stay in JNB. Lufthansa went to various destinations to "park" the aircraft for the day. Windhoek, Cape Town and for a while Harare. I think Cape Town would love for them to park elswhere as they havn't got to much space. Ba went to Gabarone from JNB every now and then with the one aircraft.
Its amazing to see how many pax reconnect from FRA and ZRH in the mornings. And as has been said before, it wouldnt help the pax much if the arrive in Europe at 9pm (later if the flight was delayed) and end up staying over at the airport.

[Seat1APlease]

As others have mentioned KLM, amongst others, have tried doing the Southbound to Capetown during daylight.

It has to leave AMS by 0900 to arrive in CPT at 2300 because of the time change. It makes it very difficult for connections at either end, and although CPT is safer than JNB, who would want to arrive in a strange city at midnight with all your worldly belongings with you. There are similar problems on the Aussie routes with aircraft sitting on the ground at both ends during the day.

[rej]

Might it have something to do with the fact that due to flight time, crew duty resting periods and routes/scheduling the airlines have no other role for the airframe and they, or the airport, cannot afford financially or logistically to have the ac at the stand all day.

Not sure how true it is but I heard a rumour that one major airline does't even use a stand at JNB. Instead they get their 300+ pax to use steps to deplane as it keeps their ground costs to a minimum.

[zed3]

Seat1APlease , KLM still fly both the Cape Town and Johannesburg with an early morning departure from Amsterdam - 1005 for the 591 to Johannesburg . The a/c then returns almost immediately after a +/- 90 min turnaround.