How do airlines usually show departure/arrival times (which time zone?) e.g. LAX to HNL

Factual Questions
1

I’m trying to figure out flight times between Los Angeles and Honolulu at the Delta Airlines website. The flight is on 9 November 2011, so California will have “fallen back” from daylight savings time and will be on PST. Hawaii’s time zone is HAST (Hawaii has no daylight savings time.)

When they list flights at their site, is the usual practice to list the departure and arrival times both in the local time zone, or to list them both in the departure time zone?

Here are the steps I follow.

Delta: Flight Schedules
Enter these search criteria for the flight search
LAX to HNL 11/09/2011 (9 November)
Time: Direct Flights
Max number of flights to show: All
Click Go

In the results screen, I see for example this flight
Delta 1559
Depart Time/Date 2:55 PM 9 Nov 2011
Arrive Time/Date 6:41 PM 9 Nov 2011
Flight Time 5:46

So it seems that the arrival time of 6:41 PM is shown in PST, not HAST? i.e. the same time zone for departure and arrival?

Just above the list of flights, I see a link that says “Reverse Route”. I click on that. Then I see for example this flight:

Delta 2364
Depart Time/Date 2:00 PM 9 Nov 2011
Arrive Time/Date 9:30 PM 9 Nov 2011
Flight Time 5:30

Now they’re showing the departure time in HAST and the arrival time in PST? i.e. different time zones for departure and arrival?

Isn’t that inconsistent with what I saw on the first screen?

2

I don’t see what the problem is. PST is UTC-8 and HAST is UTC-10. A flight that starts at 2:55 and lasts 5:46 will arrive at 8:41 in PST, and therefore 6:41 in HAST.

This seems to work the same as in the first case.

3

It’s always the local time. For example, a flight from NY to LA will have the departure time in NY time, the arrival time in LA time.

4

It looks like the flights here follow what I understand is standard practice: times are referenced to the local timezone. Thus, departures times are local times for the departure airport and arrival times are local times for the destination airport.

5

:smack: I was reading it wrong! I feel so stupid now.

6

Times are always in the local time zone: time for departure in that time zone, time for arrival in the other time zone. That’s why I flew from Japan to California, and arrived several hours before I left.

7

When I look back at past airline tickets I have, I see that you’re right, C K Dexter Haven. My mistake this time is that my eyes were reading 9:30 PM but my brain kept on thinking 19:30.

What started this whole thing in the first place is that, after my Dad forwarded the e-mail to me about his trip to Hawaii, I was going to tell him how long the flight was. I wish the e-mail would include a “Flight time” column, I was lazy and went to the Delta website to figure that out instead of trying to figure out the daylight savings time scenarios and time differences.