For years I’ve been (quietly) wondering why there are no redeyes from Europe to North America. There are obviously redeyes from North America to Europe, and there are even daytime flights from North America to London, which I find to be a bit of a waste of time, given that they take up a whole day.
I can certainly see the logic in them, that you arrive in London late in the evening, get a good night of sleep, and are fresh to work the next morning, though it’s not quite that straightforward to me. If you started in Chicago, for example, and get to bed in London at 10PM (after landing an hour prior), that’s really 4PM Chicago time. I don’t think it ends up being any better for jetlag than just taking a redeye from the US and getting at least a few hours of sleep.
But I’ve always thought it would make sense to have redeyes from Europe to the US. Many flights from India and Asia to Europe are similar, leaving late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, and arriving in Europe at the crack of dawn. To me it just makes sense. Maybe you won’t arrive all that well rested, though at least you didn’t waste a day.
Along those lines, for the first time that I can remember, I see that Lufthansa has a flight in the schedule for next summer that’s a redeye from Europe to North America. Specifically, they’ll be launching five times weekly service from Munich to Mexico City on March 26, with the following schedule:
Lufthansa 520 Munich to Mexico City departing at 10:25PM and arriving at 4:25AM
Lufthansa 521 Mexico City to Munich departing at 10:25AM and arriving at 5:05AM (+1 day)
Yes, the return flight sucks, but am I the only one that would be all over the outbound?
Admittedly the flight is on the long side, around 13 hours from Munich to Mexico City, but the same model could be applied to other routes.
For example, Frankfurt to Miami currently departs at 9:55AM and arrives at 1:50PM, so it arrives about four hours after it departs (in local time zones). I’d love a flight that departs at 2AM and gets in at 6AM instead. I could sleep most of the way (and unlike on the way to Europe, the flights are a bit longer on the way back).
Or here’s a totally different option. Lufthansa’s flight from Frankfurt to Seattle, for example, presently departs at 9:55AM and arrives at 11:25AM. that means it arrives 90 minutes after it departs (in local time zones). How about instead switching the flight to a 10PM departure with an 11:30PM arrival? That way one could get in a full day of work and still get a good night of sleep before the next day.
I’m not suggesting these types of changes will work for everyone, but I am pointing out that there’s a lot of competition among transatlantic carriers. Many routes have over a dozen frequencies a day and are trying to find ways to differentiate themselves. Something like this wouldn’t work well on a flight that currently has a single frequency, but when an airline has a handful of flights a day, why not try something like this?
Am I that crazy to think that some innovation with flight times would make sense? Of all the airlines flying from London to Los Angeles, for example, how about a 9PM departure that gets into Los Angeles at midnight?
Anyway, just throwing out some ideas. Would anyone else actually favor a redeye (or night departure with a very late night arrival) over a daytime flight?
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