Why do Palau flights leave at 230AM!!

[greg11]

just curious if anyone knows why the flights leave at such an odd time in Palau. What do most people do? Get to the airport in the evening and just hang out until 230am when the flight leaves?

 

[Deep Water Dan]

My guess is that it has to do with airframe utilization, i.e. they're probably using the planes for the busier routes during the day. Seems that most of the flights from the smaller islands are redeyes. When we stayed at the Sea Passion they let us keep the room until the airport shuttle left around midnight, so you're not in the airport very long. I'd bet most of the other hotels do the same. We also departed early because there's no need to wait for anybody coming from a connecting flight.

 

[robint]

there is only one Continental plane in per day, coming from US, and it arrives there around 1am as I remember. They prep the plane and it goes back out, stopping at Yap, then Guam, then Honolulu. I would guess this is best in order to make connections, rather than arriving in middle of night. Connections from there to LAX, arriving mid-morning. Remember, this will be crossing a dateline also. It makes for a very, very long trip... I have never been so tired as I was after this return from Palau and we both had jet lag for a week.

we had a day-room at hotel with shuttle to airport at 11pm included. The shuttle bus stopped at every hotel to pick people up, then headed to airport arriving around midnight. There we all stood in line as customs and flight check-in took over an hour, then we boarded the plane.

robin

 

[Damselfish]

simple math - on a flight of that length one end of the other is bound to be at a lousy time. Makes more sense to work better with other flight schedules than leave Palau or whereever at a ciivilized time.

 

[CA Diver]

Connections. Flights from the other Pacific Islands are scheduled to arrive in Guam in time to make the 6:40 am flight back to Honolulu.

 

[altaskier]

simple math - on a flight of that length one end of the other is bound to be at a lousy time. Makes more sense to work better with other flight schedules than leave Palau or whereever at a ciivilized time.

The Guam - Yap - Palau flights are not particularly long. I think the timing is all driven by the connection to the big plane at Guam, which is driven by the convenient flight schedules between the US and Honolulu (as others have pointed out).