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Transatlantic flights where you arrive before you leave

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Transatlantic flights where you arrive before you leave
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Justin Foster Private Aviation Journalist | Simple Flying

Three transatlantic routes arrive up to 30 minutes before departing due to the time zone change being greater than the block time. Fewer than one in 1,000 flights across the Atlantic 'time travel'. An additional 12 links arrive within 60 minutes of leaving (in local time).

Flights that arrive before they leave are intriguing. The most famous examples involved Concorde: BA001 left Heathrow at 10:30 and arrived at New York JFK at 09:25 local time, while AF002 departed Paris CDG at 10:15 and arrived at 08:15. While numerous short-haul examples exist, the situation differs for long-haul flights, including those across the Atlantic.

Using Cirium data to examine all scheduled summer passenger services between Europe, Africa, the Middle East, etc., across the Atlantic to the Americas indicates that just three routes made the cut. They are summarized below.

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Between July 1 and September 21 (the last day of the season for these routes), these three collectively have 81 departures (each way). As such, fewer than one in 1,000 transatlantic flights 'time travel.'

The specific routes are as follows:

- Condor's Frankfurt-Anchorage route departs at various times (14:10-13:50, 14:30-14:10, and 15:00-14:40) and arrives 20 minutes before departure. This service operates thrice weekly with an A330neo and ends for the season on September 14.

- Discover's Frankfurt-Anchorage route departs at 14:20 and arrives at 13:50, arriving 30 minutes before departure. This service operates twice weekly with an A330-300 and ends for the season on September 21.

- Finnair's Helsinki-Seattle route departs at 16:40 and arrives at 16:00, arriving 20 minutes before departure. This service operates thrice weekly with an A350-900 and ends for the season on August 31. The oneworld route began in 2022.

Given so few services arrive before they leave, another table lists transatlantic airport pairs that arrive no more than 60 minutes after taking off (local time). This is based on examining all flights between July and September.

Notably included is Greenland's inclusion using turboprops by Icelandair* operating Keflavik-Kulusuk (Greenland) route from Keflavik departing at different times (17:30-18:15) with a Dash Q400/Q200 aircraft arriving within a timeframe of up to about a maximum of around an hour or less compared to other airline pairs mentioned below.

The specific routes are:

- Air Canada’s Dublin-Vancouver route departs at various times such as (10;15 -11;15) four weekly 787 -9 aircraft

-Ai France’s Paris CDG-Vancouver daily 777 -200ER

-KLM’s Amsterdam-Calgary Daily 777 -200ER

-KLM’s Amsterdam-Edmonton Four times weekly A330 -200

-KLM’s Amsterdam-Vancouver Daily 777 -300ER/777 -200ER

-Icelandair* Keflavik-Kulusuk(Dash Q400/Q200)

-Icelandair Keflavik-Seattle Triple daily from September onwards(757 –200ER )

-Icelandair Keflavik-Vancouver Four weekly(737 MAX8/757 –200ER)

-Lufthansa Frankfurt –Vancouver Daily(747–400)

-WestJet Edinburgh-Calgary Four Weekly(787 –9)

-WestJet Keflavik-Calgary Four Weekly(737MAX8)

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Organizations Included in this History
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