When Will It Get Light?

[Paracab]

Bit of an odd question, but I'm taking the 18.40 BA LHR-HKG in a few weeks and just wondered at what point in the journey can I expect to see some sunshine?

Cheers y'all

[fernytickles]

When you get away from the rainy UK :}

[TopBunk]

The flight arrives in HKG at 14:40 local time the next afternoon.

I would imagine that it will start to get light about 6 or maybe 7 hours into the flight (give or take half way there).

Of course the cabin crew may try to stop you raising the blind so that others sleep is not disrupted.:ouch:

[PAXboy]

Go to: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html
and then adjust the time in the boxes underneath the map. It will then reload to the date and time in the future, that you requested.

If you set the time to be, say half way through the flight time in hours, then you will get an idea of the daylight pattern. The flight is probably about 14 hours, but it's ten years since I flew that route. Look up departure time and then add 7 hours but have fun adjusting time zones.

A friendly warning, this website (and check out the home page for all of it's World Clock features) can cause you to lose hours of time!! ;)

[TopBunk]

14 hours :\ ... what were you flying in? The QOTS has a 12 hour schedule chox to chox, so likely an 11:30 flight time.

[PAXboy]

First HKG to LGW was a BA 744 in 1990. Then VS 343 and mainly by the older and slower southerly route. Only once did I do the 'new' northerly route across Russia. But, due to weather diversions, it still took a long time.

[ZFT]

Of course the cabin crew may try to stop you raising the blind so that others sleep is not disrupted.:ouch:


TopBunk,

I would imagine once the 787 gets into service, all flights will unfortunately be in darkness.

I wish I could believe it was for other passengers comfort (they could always wear eye masks) but it does seem that some carriers do this with the sole purpose of allowing the CC to ‘rest’ throughout the flight.

[Lemper]

The acurate flight time at which you will see the sun is found by integrating the aircaft ground speed, the earth angular speed at the latitude flown at the time of local sunrise and the date (season, that is the earth inclination relative to its orbit plane). We used to do that kind of of navigation execise at school, before the digital computers, JAR-FCL and PPRUNE to do the homework for us ;) I won't give the formula and its solution here, just in case you are one of those trying to skip his homework, but if the question is genuine, then you should see first glimpse of rising sun on the forward right side of the aircraft around 65 deg East, and that would be around 2 AM London time, 10 AM Hong Kong time.

[TightSlot]

it does seem that some carriers do this with the sole purpose of allowing the CC to ‘rest’ throughout the flight.

??? - Is there aany evidence at all to support this?

[Cremeegg]

Paxboy - I used the CX 747-200 LGW - HKG in May 88 12H30 and returned in July again on CX 747-200 at 13H10 then. Think CX had been running them direct for some while in 1988 - only possible after latest upgrade to the RB211's.

[ZFT]

TightSlot,

Evidence, no. However personnal experience does seem to justify my comment.

[VS-LHRCSA]

ZFT, there are perfectly good bunks for us to rest in.

From a passenger point of view I would prefer the blinds to be down to provide better contrast to the IFE screen. Also, when blinds go up, other passengers wake up, which causes disturbance when I am trying to sleep. Eye-shades don't really work for me, either.

As crew, I would keep the blinds down for the benefit of the whole cabin. If everyone else is asleep, I would encourage them to be left down. If everyone's awake, then fine.

Your comments on crew rest however are uncalled for. Unless you've done the job, on this route, you can't really comment. This forum is not a place for passengers to have a dig at crew. You have Customer Relations for that.

[PAXboy]

To continue the thread drift in to a conversation we have had before ... the problem with the 787 window 'screens' is that you will not be able (I understand) to open them just a crack. With the sliding screen, you can open it half an inch and then squeeze down in your seat and still enjoy the view.

I gather that when you 'open' the screen on the 787 window, it will be across the full face of it? That means having to drape a blanket over your head to keep the glare from others. IF that is the case, then I think it a retrograde step.

[Self Loading Freight]

The flight back can be miserable at this time of year. I just got back from Harry Honkers on BA; from sundown in Shenzhen at 6pm local to dawn in London at around 7:30am local (the flight got in at just past 5am) was getting on for a 21 hour night.

Mind you, it was enlivened by Nigel. We were about an hour late taking off due to two pax not boarding and their baggage getting deplaned, which occasioned a PA from Nige saying "Terribly sorry for this delay. If I had my way, passengers who did this would be lined up against a wall and shot" (much laughter over the PA, short pause in proceedings).

We made up the time: just after we'd done the usual LHR taxithon and got to the stand, another PA from the pointy bit said "And if you look out of the left-hand side of the aircraft you can see that the other BA flight which took off a minute after us from Hong Kong is just landing now. He had a bad hair night, let me tell you."

[WHBM]

??? - Is there any evidence at all to support this?
TightSlot

I know you are from the CC side but those of us who are well versed in long-haul on mainstream carriers find that increasingly the crew are conspicuous by their absence for long intervals and feel their duties are confined to the stipulated meal services.

Unfortunately the trend is spreading from the European/North American carriers where it started to others. Only last week I was on Malaysian LHR-KUL (12 hours) where apart from a meal 1 hour after departure and another 1 hour before landing, there was only a periodic service of trays of refreshments. A visit to the galley for a can of drink required parting the curtain to speak to the gossip group and a hostile response from a steward for this temerity.

It is especially hacking-off when in business class and you have paid all that money to find that the crew are mostly in their bunks, presumably to get rested to go off to their "day jobs" once they get home.

This forum is not a place for passengers to have a dig at crew. You have Customer Relations for that.No, Customer Relations is for sending out asinine word-processed letters that reply to points completely different to any you may have raised in your initial comments.

Suppose I should stand by for incoming now.

[strake]

A visit to the galley for a can of drink required parting the curtain to speak to the gossip group and a hostile response from a steward for this temerity.
It is irritating... I had exactly the same coming back from Tokyo a couple of weeks ago. Not, it must be said from the Japanese crew (who are always extremely pleasant and friendly) but from the sulky Brits.
As I had just received a letter from Virgin telling me I was not, "at this time on track to renew your valuable PAMS membership", I decided to tell them a few home truths. Firstly, their crews need to get out of the UC galley where they appear to spend time complaining about pay on the way out and laughing and shouting on the way home. Secondly, I don't give a monkeys about PAMS and the reason I'm not on target to reach it is because I've stopped flying with them to North America due to the dreadful service they now offer.
To be fair, the response I had was almost by return and very concerned. It leads me to believe that there is a groundswell of long-time Virgin customers saying enough is enough.
Thread drift? Me? 7 hours.

[RevMan2]

WARNING - THREAD DRIFT!

Back in the days when Ms RevMan was a sandwich mechanic and my mate RWS (later to rise to the heady heights of CEO at EY) was Cargo Ops Manager in VCP, a heated discussion ensued about the logic of ripping out 12 business class seats and replacing them with a Crew Rest Cabin.

Huge loss of revenue on every flight and the people who thought it up should have been shot.

"Do you really believe, Madam" he said (they never did get on too well...)"that your husband goes on a night shift and then goes to bed for 6 hours after working for an hour?"

I'm with WHBM on this one.

It really does tick me off that service drops to RyanAir levels at night, no matter which class you're flying in.

I accept that working long-haul flights stuffs your circadian rhythm and that rest periods are justified and necessary, but at the moment, the pendulum's swinging too far away from where I'm sitting.

[TightSlot]

WHBM, ZFT, strake and others - I asked for evidence and you have supplied it - anecdotal maybe, but that's often as good as it gets on PPRuNe.

It is instinctive to try and support others in the same job, but at the same time I'm not going to attempt to defend others doing the job badly - it depresses me, and I like to hope that I wouldn't allow such behaviour on a flight that I was responsible for.

[AircraftOperations]

I had 11h 15m LHR-HKG, and 13h HKG-LHR airborne times recently with BA.

[davidc_482]

well,,, not to make you feel disappointed,
but even if there were sunlight,
they wouldn't allow you to raise the blinds,
i remember when i was taking a midnight flight from YVR to HKG
and few hours into the flight, they asked us to pull down the blinds,
but i keep constantly pulling it back up
because at that time i was still a kid and curious to look outside,
but they just kept coming back telling me to keep it down~~ ><

[strake]

Tightslot,
Do not despair. I think it is something to do with long-haul flights. Maybe there are too many crew on board (because of legislation) with not enough to do and that then leads to a type of malaise. I don't fly short-haul very often these days but as it happens, I did last week. Air Berlin to Dusseldorf. For the first time in a long while, I really enjoyed my flight. Two very nice crew welcoming everyone on board. A 90 second safety briefing which everyone seemed to watch. As soon as the wheels were up, so were the CC. They served everyone with a ham or cheese bagette, which was extremely tasty, together with soft drinks or tea/coffee.
All cleared away again quickly and enough time for them both to come round with some chocolate Santa sweets. I watched the German girl working our part of the aircraft and every so often, she would ask passengers if they had children. If the answer was yes, she told them to take a couple of extra Santa's.
That is a flight I will remember for a long time. Cost? About £80.
Only an hour but it made a lasting impression. I would think up excuses to fly with these people again:)
Contrast that with a flight I am doing to NY next Monday. I can't get Silverjet or Eos, so it's VS UC complete with bad attitude. Now who's depressed..:sad:

[boyo25]

I think cabin crew are getting an unfair beating on this issue.

I'm unclear as to why, but crew rest will always bring out some resentment in passengers.

Lets clear this myth up ------ the issue of crew rest and closed window blinds are completely and totally seperate. Cabin crew bunks are situated at the back of the aircraft and there are no windows to interfere with our bunk rest. Crew who are on bunk rest will not give a monkeys as to whether the blinds are open or closed.

Crew who are on duty will try to keep the windows down for the benefit of other passengers who may be sleeping, and not (as suggested) to maximise their rest - the crew on duty are not on rest and, indeed, may even welcome any distraction during the 'dark' hours to keep themselves occupied (I know I do!)

In addition, there seems to be some grumbling about lack of service/crew in between stipulated meal routines. May I suggest, if this aggrieves you in any way, then you raise it with the inflight services dept of the airline concerned.

We, as crew, operate to specific service standards issued by the company, and in between meal services the service is reduced to a regular juice/water round and a cabin check. Other services (alcohol/hot drinks etc) are on request only. This will obviously seem like crew aren't doing very much during the period between formal services but ultimately, the crew will follow the company service standards for that cabin.

Obviously, the longer the flight, the longer the period is between the meal services, and the longer it will seem that crew aren't very visible. But in the main, the crew are there and ready to deal with any requests and doing the regular cabin checks, specific requests etc.

I've been flying long enough to know that there are some crew out there who aren't as 'responsive' as others, but generally I feel our job is done to standard and done well, and the bad apples are few and far between. As always, it'll always be the minority who spoil it for all of us who do a good job.

[TG345]

I am alone in this view?

On my regular long haul legs (UK-BKK-UK) I am more than happy to see the cabin crew disappear after dinner until breakfast. This gives the maximum chances of a quiet cabin and a decent amount of sleep.

[TheChitterneFlyer]

Well said boyo25, but could I also add... if the 'J' Class passengers have a need for constant attention that they put their hand in their pocket and upgrade! They would then very quickly discover that even in 'First' that passengers don't want the cabin flooded with daylight. :ugh:

The joys of longhaul huh? But when the technonlogy does finally arrive... 'Beam me up Scotty'!

[ZFT]

Rubbish. I’ve ‘enjoyed’ 6 sectors in the front end this past month BKK to Europe and I wanted daylight throughout. That’s why I selected the daytime flight, not the nightime flight.

[TheChitterneFlyer]

From ZFT:

Rubbish. I’ve ‘enjoyed’ 6 sectors in the front end this past month BKK to Europe and I wanted daylight throughout. That’s why I selected the daytime flight, not the nightime flight.

I believe we were talking about 'night flying'... weren't we? Sigh!

[ZFT]

They would then very quickly discover that even in 'First' that passengers don't want the cabin flooded with daylight. :ugh:


You get daylight during the night in your part of the world?

[MuttleyJ]

To those of you moaning that the crew aren't in the cabin between meal services.... What on earth do you want to be happening on a long night flight guys???? After a bar round and a meal, with crew and trolleys constantly in the aisle preventing you walking to the loo, what do you want the crew to be doing? OK, juices or water now and again, but I'd rather be left alone to read my book, watch a film or just sleep! Do you want a re-enactment of last week's Strictly Come Dancing? Or a tombola raffle? Good god. There's only a certain amount of room to stow catering, surely you can't be that hungry, what are you expecting????

[llanfairpg]

You get daylight during the night in your part of the world?

It helps Father Christmas deliver all the presents.

Can I choose the 'Strictly Come Dancing' option please?