Flights to New York

[floweringpoppies]

Would really like to go to New York in august but worried that flights will be cancelled. Would you risk it?

And be stranded there....I'd def go lol

Its like any travel anywhere just now, its a gamble.

I'm going. It's all good. What happens, happens. I'm staying with family over there

We really have to be back on the 25th for my daughter's gcse results, if not I'd be a bit more blasé!!

Ok, fair enough. There's nothing to suggest they'll cancel it. I think the transatlantic service providers will pull out all the stops to support them

I am going to NY. I am on various planning pages. At the moment, it seems to be issues with internal flights so if you need to come down to London from Manchester or Scotland first. The main flights seem to be fine. Where are you flying from?

@oodledoodle probably Gatwick looking at the flights

I agree with pp... long haul flights are massively unlikely to be cancelled, especially coming back to the UK as they have to then get you on a diff flight and it's more hassle etc. I'd book long haul over short haul for sure

Agree with many of the above comments...the airlines will try to protect the Long Haul services as much as possible though if you are flying with an airline which has multiple UK to JFK (or Newark, EWR) a day there's just a chance of a bit of consolidating but you should travel on the booked days.

The bigger problem is any short haul flights.

Off topic but has DD not opted in for the text service (as well as postal) or is that just a Scottish thing?

yeah id plan to go

Ooh I didn't know any carriers went from LGW - was all LHR when I went.

But yes I'd go. The vast majority of flights are ok.

Ready to be corrected but I don't think any do right now.

AFAIK from next month Norse are planning to resurrect the LGW-JFK services previously run by Norwegian.

Jet Blue fly LGW - NYC I think?

I flew to NYC earlier this month, both flights were an hour early. Other colleagues were delayed 24 hours, but no one got ‘stranded’.

Book a route that has several flights a day and you’ll be fine. Maybe don’t book the return for the 24th - just plan to be back a couple of days earlier than you really need.

When it comes to flights being cancelled, it seems to be a case of consolidation with BA. So if they have 4 flights per day to New York JFK, they cancel one and the people can shift to another flight that same day.

Personally, I wouldn't go to NYC in August - it's like a sauna that stinks of rubbish - but presumably you know what the weather will be like?

Both JetBlue and British Airways fly LGW - JFK direct, on a daily frequency. Worst case scenario a flight is cancelled and OP is sent to LHR instead - would that be an issue for you OP?

"I flew to NYC earlier this month, both flights were an hour early"

Your flights both left an hour early and nobody missed them?

I wonder if she means they arrived an hour early..
that happens all the time as they overestimate the time a flight takes when they tell you what the landing time is so there's less chance of it being "late"...

@GrandSlamFinalee
Both JetBlue and British Airways fly LGW - JFK direct, on a daily frequency.

That'll teach me not check properly thanks for the info..

@rosiestraws

that happens all the time as they overestimate the time a flight takes when they tell you what the landing time is so there's less chance of it being "late"..

Not quite...stand by for perhaps a TL;DR..

Roughly the flight times used in timetables are statistically based - they are usually based on the average flight time for the season (summer/winter).

The reason is:

Firstly the average wind at altitude on a particular route very much varies with the season ( for example over the Atlantic you'd expect on most days a stronger wind at high level out of the west in winter than in summer)

and then, secondly, airliners at altitude can't generally speed up or slow down massively to compensate for a stronger than average/weaker than average wind - the pilots can tweak the speed a bit but in general your flight time on any specific day is very dependent on the wind on that specific day.

As a result on long Long Haul routes the effect can be very significant - you can sometimes on very long sectors on a bad/good day end up plus 😃or minus 😥an hour on scheduled times....nothing much the crew can do about it.

BTW, the international standard is that the arrival time in published schedules is the time of arrival at the gate/on stand, it's not the landing time (I know some LoCos like to make a fanfare about the landing time...)

Yes that makes sense. I can't imagine them both leaving early since they have an allocated slot for take off

I'm sitting at Heathrow after taking 1.5 hours to get through security. My flight yesterday was cancelled and my flight today is an hour late. Traveling to the US, so no guarantee that long haul flights are going OK.

Yep, and these days many places issue an allocated Start up time as well as an allocated take-off time (the traditional "ATC slot").

FWW in the context of early arrivals some airport authorities also look hard at arrival times and will penalise airlines whose aircraft regularly land excessively ahead of published schedule.

Of course they didn’t take off an hour early. Yes, I meant we were out of the plane 1h ahead of schedule. Like others have said, it’s a combination of slightly exaggerated average times, tailwind, less taxiing / waiting than expected. Lots of parameters known to the airline industry. If a flight pushes back from the gate exactly on time, it will most likely land well ahead of schedule.

Book a route that has a lot of planes per day, so if one cancels there are others to put you on. Book on the first flight of the day, so you still have a chance of getting back that same day. Only take hand luggage so you can be flexible with changing flights.

But why NY in August, it will be like the UK just was in the heat wave but add 90% humidity… why not go in autumn half term if you need to stick to school holidays