No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 21

Airplane, Australia, Geography, New South Wales, Sydney | Right | August 6, 2024

We have just flown from London to Sydney (with a stopover) and I have announced our arrival location and time to the passengers. As the passengers are beginning to disembark and collect their overhead luggage, an angry-looking passenger calls me over.

Passenger: “Hey! It’s daytime out there! Where are we?!”

Me: “Sir, as we have just announced we have landed in Sydney.”

The passenger continues to glare at me, and I feel like I need to clarify:

Me: “Sydney… Australia, sir.”

Passenger: “It can’t be! I was told that daytime is nighttime in Australia, but it’s lunchtime and the sun is way up there in the sky!”

Yes, instead of understanding time zones, the passenger thought that “if it’s daytime in London then it’s night time in Sydney” meant that Australians just, I dunno… stayed up at nighttime and slept through the day. It took me a few minutes to explain it to him (I was trapped close to him while other passengers grabbed their luggage). After he left, another passenger made eye contact with me.

Other Passenger: “Wait until he realises their summer is our winter and vice versa!”

Me: “Don’t! It was hard enough explaining hours, let alone seasons!”