Night flights AKL-SYD - why not?

[pat25d]

Wanting to fly to Auckland for a weekend and be back for work on Monday, but the latest VA/NZ flight I can find is 5:30pm, and the only other later flight is a 6pm Emirates flight.

Given these land in Syd a long time before the curfew, whats the reason why there are no later flights out of AKL?

 

[Bundy Bear]

Wanting to fly to Auckland for a weekend and be back for work on Monday, but the latest VA/NZ flight I can find is 5:30pm, and the only other later flight is a 6pm Emirates flight.

Given these land in Syd a long time before the curfew, whats the reason why there are no later flights out of AKL?

Aircraft utilization.

An aircraft can fly NZ, Australia, NZ, Australia, NZ so 2 round trips. Starting 6:00am from Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch an aircraft can fly to Sydney then back to Auckland by around 2:30pm and then complete another round trip to Australia and finish back at the starting point around midnight ready for the next day.

If you think Sydney is bad, Brisbane is worse.

 

[haydensydney]

It annoys me too - the latest flight to NZ from SYD is 6-ish (6:40pm on NZ I think). I've always wondered why also, so thanks for posting!

 

[pat25d]

I guess that explains why the only VA/DJ-metal is actually Virgin Australia NZ, not Virgin Australia, so the planes are based out of AKL then?

 

[pat25d]

Surely there is some demand for an 8:30pm flight though...

 

[under the radar]

Surely there is some demand for an 8:30pm flight though...

an 8.30pm AKL departure would have the a/c land perilously close to curfew (between 10-10.30pm) at SYD...any delay could turn into an overnight stay in AKL which would wipe ANY benefit of a later departure the night before! at least with a 6.30pm dep the airlines have a couple of hrs to 'play with' in case the s**t hits the fan....just a thought :idea:

 

[serfty]

For year or two, QF134 departed AKL after 8pm to MEL - but that's the only westerly late TT departure I was aware of for the last decade.

 

[simongr]

I too find it very annoying. WLG is worse - 3:50 I think is the last flight out.