An old friend, Ronald Nordheimer of Delaware Travel Agency in
Wilmington, Del., called to say that he was in the process of
checking out a tour that included an Atlanta-Cancun flight, but the
literature showed an elapsed flight time of three hours outbound
and one hour inbound. Perplexed by the rather large discrepancy,
Nordheimer checked his Sabre display. He found an Atlanta-Cancun
flight operated under a Delta-Aeromexico code share, departing at 4
p.m. Delta's listing showed an arrival of 6:45 p.m. Aeromexico's
listing showed the same flight arriving at 5:45 p.m. Nordheimer
called Delta, whose phone answerer swore the carrier's arrival time
was correct. He called Aeromexico, whose person swore the same. He
called Sabre, which didn't swear anything but promised to try to
get the carriers to resolve their differences. Undaunted,
Nordheimer decided he could figure out the flight time on his own
if he knew the time zone for Cancun, but he wasn't sure what it
was. So he called the Mexican Government Tourist Office and popped
the question. "Eastern Standard Daily Saving Time" was the
response. Never having heard of a time zone quite like that,
Nordheimer looked at his watch and asked, "What time is it in
Cancun right now?" The answer: It was exactly the same time as in
Delaware. "It's hysterical," he told Insider. "It's why I stay in
the business. And they say that people don't need travel agents."