Airport arrival times

[catherine_s]

I've booked a plane ticket to New Zealand and its given me an arrival time, is that arrival time for GMT or is it New Zealand time? Someone has to pick me up the other end and I'm not sure which time to tell them!

[SteveD]

It will be local (New Zealand) time.

[new_squizza]

generally speaking, flight times are given in local terms, so the departure time will be GMT (assuming you're travelling from the UK) and the arrival time will be NZ time (GMT+12)

[arty7774]

It would be also usefull to give them your flight number so they can check to see if your flight is on time or not.

[jno]

if flying direct you'll be in the air very roughly 24 hours. So leave at 9pm, arrive 9am

[heathfield]

catherine - your airline ticket shows local times. squizza - we haven't been on GMT here in the UK since the end of March.

[ianess]

Times on ticket will be local time for that airport.
Could get really confusing depending on direction of travelling and crossing the international date line!
Did anyone see the programme where Jeremy Clarkson flew round the world virtually non-stop on scheduled flights? The poor guy was a physical and emotional wreck at the end of it. I actually felt sorry for him.

[bongerman]

ianess is right - check the date of arrival as well as the time!!

I once got a flight from Santiago, Chile to Auckland NZ - I took off on December 3rd and landed on Dec 5th and the flight was only about 10hours long!!

[Gef]

Sorry to recap but all times on airline tickets are in local time. At the moment UK is on BST (GMT +1 hour) and NZ is on their winter time (GMT +12 hours), ie an actual difference of 11 hours.

jno, as far as I am aware you cannot fly direct from the UK as we don't have a commercial plane that can stay airborne for long enough.

bongerman, are you sure that you got the dates the right way around?

[jno]

well I didn't mean non-stop, Gef - just no stopovers... if you fly Air NZ via LA (or Hong Kong from October, I think), you touch down for an hour or two while they change crew and clean and refuel the plane, then continue onward on the same plane. About 26 hours via LA, 24 via HK, a bit less if you go JAL via Tokyo. So you're flying for about a day. Your itinerary should show the time, and date, of your arrival in NZ time. If in doubt check with the airline's website.

Bongerman I once did the same thing in reverse - flew from Auckland to LA and arrived the same day, which was a pity because I'd booked a hire car for the next day. Idiot.

[jno]

PS catherine - just tell the person who's picking you up what flight you're on. There aren't that many international flights into NZ, it's not like Heathrow, and they'll be able to check the arrival time for themselves. They'll want to do so anyway, just in case it lands early or (more likely) late.