Flight Times: Understanding Flight Travel Times
You are told that your flight’s travel time to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France will be 13 hours. Based on this information, you might have selected your outbound travel flight time from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris to continue your journey. Halfway through the flight you realize that the flight times must have been approximate because there is no way that you will make it on time to the French airport.

Flight arrival times are very often little more than educated guesses on the part of the airline. To this end British Airways flight times are usually stated with a little warning that they are subject to change without notice. The reasons for such discrepancies with respect to flight times are varied. There may be weather patterns that influence departures and arrivals. There may be stops along the way that take longer than expected. Cargo problems may add minutes and even hours to the estimated overall flight times. The list is almost endless!

Follow Real Time Flight Times
Real time flight following may be done on the Internet. Generally speaking, a number of websites will provide such information – like current updates on Heathrow flight times – as a service to travelers the world over. Usually these sites are updated as often as every four minutes.

Online travel companies will display fares and fare ranges, as well as the time, and date of a flight including any travel news germane to this airline. If the company knows that the airline is renowned for being on time, they will state so. On the other hand, sometimes a little notation next to travel dates, fares, and times of flight departure will state that delays may be expected.

For a traveler it is a good rule of thumb to expect travel flight times to be approximate, and to permit for delays of these travel flight times. This will permit you to select outbound roundtrip flight times for travel with at least a 1hr window, even though real time airline flights tracking to some locations suggests adding as much as three hours. So go ahead and do some research online and check the departure times for Air Transat (for example) on flights from Vancouver, BC and note if they are usually on time, early, or late. If you see a pattern emerging, keep this in mind when booking your flights.