I was reviewing the records of a particular flight, Continental Flight 11 from Charles de Gaulle in Paris to Houston. We take that flight sometimes. I notice that the departure times are given in GMT. CDG is GMT +1 hour, so a flight departing at noon local time is at 1300Z. I rode that flight a week ago, and it left at about noon, but Flightaware shows them leaving at about 6 pm Z, and arriving usually between 4-5 pm CST. The departure times appear to be erroneous.
Hi, JALLEN.
You might notice that on the flight track page for COA11, it says:
At least part of this flight occurs outside of FlightAware’s service area. As a result, information on this page may be unreliable.
Additionally, the following frequently asked questions will probably be of value to you:
I did notice that, as well as the FAQ’s you noted. This makes any reliance on this information quite useless. The discrepancy isn’t between gate time and wheels up time… it is off by many hours, apparently.
I was actually hoping that by bringing this to your attention it would invoke another FAQ, viz:
"I see a consistent discrepancy or anomaly in tracking data. What should I do? (Back To Top)
Please bring it up in the public discussions. While we’re unable to guarantee a resolution for every discrepancy, FlightAware can research some situations to determine the source of the problem and possibly take action if it leads to a wide scale fix. "
It is obvious that the data for departure and arrival times is consistently goofed up. Maybe someone can look into it and figure out why. If not, well, too bad, I guess.
I read those FAQ questions and it makes sense to me now. Since Flight Aware can’t see international flights until they show up in the FAA tracked airspace the data makes sense. I don’t think there’s anything to be figured out and the FAQ questions seem to describe what I’m seeing.
It says “For flights arriving in the US from an international origin, FlightAware will be able to track the US once the flight is handed off to the US.”
That’s what it looks like for COA11 at least. The flight data starts when the plane gets close to the US. I’ll bet that the “departure” time corresponds to the time the green line starts.
It’s a shame that Flight Aware doesn’t handle international flights better, but I can understand why the limitations exist.
JALLEN:
Actually, CDG is GMT+1 hour which means noon (1200 local) is 1100 GMT, not 1300. Think about it…Greenwich, Englad is West of Paris and thus an hour behind it, not ahead of it. I think the discrepancies you are seeing are related to when the US ATC system picks up the track data (as reported above) and not an actual wheels up time in Paris, but wanted to make sure you had the GMT conversion correct…
Dave Klain
proud owner
Mooney N99376
mooney.klain.net
You got it.
That’s funny. When it is noon in England, it is 1 pm in France, and 4 AM in Kalifornistan which is GMT-8. My in-laws are Kalifornistan time plus 9 hours QED.
I see what you mean and agree that the “departure time” shown is when FAA starts controlling the flight, not when it goes wheels up… I played with the various times shown for recent flights, and there is just no way it works out otherwise. I flew CO11 on the 18th and used that as my example. My wife flew it today… just landed at IAH an hour ago, or so. There must be no way to know when international flights leave, or what their routing is… therefore the times and locations start when it hits US ATC control.
What year/model Mooney is it? I used to have a 1969 C and a 1988 K converted to Encore. Very nice airplanes! Most recently I flew a 96 Mirage.
I like pie?
I think I misunderstood what he read.