They are, in fact, inconsistent on the time.

As you indicate, the current day's arrival and departure times are shown as
a.m. and p.m. However if you go to Flight Schedules and choose the nearest
hour, you'll find it goes from 1 to 23. That's spoiled by the fact that it's
the one item they've forgotten to translate into English (showing 1 Uhr, 2
Uhr, etc.) As translation would be difficult (as English-speaking people
don't normally use the equivalent, "o'clock," with 24-hour time), they'd be
better off using 01:00, 02:00 ... 23:00.

At least the signs in the airport are, I think, 24-hour-only and
Celsius-only. They were when I lived in D�sseldorf (1988) and, although I
didn't pay particular attention, I think they were on four or five
subsequent visits (from 1990 to 1998).

On my last trip, I stayed at (and taught a 3-day seminar at) the Arabella
Airport Hotel, which is within the parking garage structure (top floor).
They bill it as "the hotel with its own airport."

Back to your original point, though, it's a pity they feel they need to
pander to am/pm/F diehards. I suspect, though, that it wasn't done for the
benefit of the British, who are used to 24-hour time and Celsius
temperatures.

Incidentally, do you ever watch the Red Cap series (which is shown, here, on
BBC America)? It's about a British military unit investigating crimes
involving British military personnel in Germany (and is filmed in Germany).
In the most recent episode, someone dies as a result of being thrown out of
a window. They have a German Polizei detective estimating the drop as "50
feet" (which should obviously have been "15 meters"). One of the British
sergeants also refers to the drop as "50 feet" and to some horizontal
distance or other in yards. In reality, of course, neither would use
anything other than meters. As the first estimate of "50 feet" was preceded
by a shot of the building, showing all floors up to the one from which the
victim was thrown, any viewer not already familiar with SI units could have
said to him/herself, "So that's how high 15 meters is." Obviously the script
editors lacked the imagination of the scriptwriters (who, I suspect, are not
to blame for such stupidity).

Bill Potts, CMS
Roseville, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]


>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Behalf Of Chris KEENAN
>Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 11:54
>To: U.S. Metric Association
>Subject: [USMA:29042] Dusseldorf airport weather data
>
>
>I will be travelling to Germany next week, and was looking up options for
>airports. I found www.duesseldorf-airport.de, and was astonished
>to see that
>the deprture and arrival times (for the English version of the pages, at
>least) were given in AM/PM. I nearly exploded when I got to the
>bottom of a
>page whch gave pressure in inches, and temps in 'F!!
>
>I've sent them feedback; others might like to do similarly.
>--
>Chris KEENAN
>UK Metric Assoc: www.metric.org.uk
>

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