Late night flights to Europe? What are your thoughts?

That seems really long. When we have flown at 8pm from SEA, we land at 6am or so, so I am wondering if you have a layover somewhere?

Well, I am coming from east coast not west so my experience might be different. But I really like late night flights. I find I do best with jet lag when I take a flight that leaves at least at 8:30 pm. I am taking a 11:30 pm flight to Portugal this Friday. I like them because closer to natural bedtime. I do not eat dinner and immediately go into bedtime mode. I will “get ready for bed” before getting on the plane (wash face, brush teeth, take pills). I use a face mask and ear plugs and always get a window seat. I am in economy but still try to sleep as soon as plane is off the ground.

I don’t like arriving as late as 6 pm but have often. The important thing just like arriving earlier is to walk around in as much sunlight as there is. For me at least, it isn’t that I have more jet lag arriving later. It is that I would rather see more of where I am in Europe before bed. But for me the trade off is that I get more sleep traveling to Europe and consequently adjust easier.

Our usual flight to Europe on British Airways leaves (supposedly) at 9:30 p.m. That puts us into LHR mid-afternoon and then we frequently have a connection that puts into our European destination sometime in the evening. We’ve actually found this to help with jet lag as it’s close to bedtime by the time we actually get to our destination and we don’t have to force ourselves to wander around in a semi-daze until then. We’ll have a catnap on the second leg but don’t fall into any kind of deep sleep.

We seem to have better luck with flights that originate late at our home airport than making a late night connecting flight. We’re still fiddling with how we prepare, but it seems to work best if we eat dinner at home and then go to sleep as soon as we can on the flight, skipping any on-board service as the 9:30 flight has yet to take off on time for us.

From your timetable, it sounds like you might have a connection. There is one area that has caused us problem and it may be that we’ve just had bad luck the last two trips. Arriving mid-afternoon means that if anything has happened at LHR early in the day, there is a domino effect that has affected us. There are websites to check on-time arrivals and departures.

I often have a late night departure. But what I do try to avoid is a late arrival. In one way it makes sense, but I dislike arriving at a new place at or after dark. But that’s just me as a solo traveler - no one else to help with finding things (since I often stay in an apartment).

There's no connection, standard direct flight time from West Coast 10 hours. So 10:00 p.m. departure, 10 hours later 8:00 a.m. USA West Coast. 6:00 p.m. Europe 10 hours ahead.

Anyway, I know there's no connection because it's a direct flight. Just leaving significantly later at night than usual.

Interesting to hear that it's not a bad jet lag situation as far as I am hearing so far. Thanks!

I'm an East Coaster. The one time I had a late departure (around 10 PM), I thought it helped me get a bit of sleep during the flight. I normally skip dinner on the eastbound flight, which may also be helpful, though I never get a great deal of sleep. I am miserable trying to stay awake until the local bedtime on the day I arrive in Europe, so a late arrival would be fine with me, as long as I could get to my hotel by 9 PM or so.

Personally, I think leaving at 10 pm local time and arriving on a direct flight at 8 am local time would be perfect. I especially like the direct flight part-there aren’t many of them from my airport!

I too like the late evening departures. From DEN, we have a couple leaving at 8:20 PM to LHR and MUC. I avoid LHR if I can, so plan for a MUC arrival after 2 PM local time. Allows me to connect and generally get to my destination by 6 PM which is great in having dinner and trying to adjust to the time zone difference.
2 advantages for me: 1) I don't have to wander around Europe like a zombie trying to stay awake till bedtime and 2) I normally fly on Thursdays which allows me to put in a full day at work, head to the airport and fly. This saves me a day of PTO.

We like taking the early evening flights out of San Francisco or Seattle (around 7:30 pm). It normally gets us in late afternoon with time to walk a bit, have dinner and go to bed. I’m also one that does not do well taking the 2:30 pm flights, trying to sleep mid afternoon and then having to force myself to stay awake all day with an early arrival. I find it’s harder to adjust after being so tired but then I’m getting older, too.

Edit…we did the AA 10 pm flight out of Seattle to London, two summers ago. We got to our hotel outside of London, walked a bit and had a nice dinner then fell into bed. Great!

Leaving from SFO I calculate 11 hours to landing in FRA or Paris.

I have no problems taking the overnight flight, no jet lag, no insomnia and falling asleep is no issue at all. It's going to happen regardless. How much is another question, be 4 hours or ca. 6.5 hrs, the max I have had.

These 2 trips to FRA and Paris CDG this summer confirmed my previous experiences pre-pandemic on 11 hour flights and what I can expect from a flight out of SFO.

Bottom line: I'm fresh and awake upon landing.

Fred I have flown to Europe at least a dozen times direct from the West Coast. But I'm asking about departure and arrival times. 10pm is about 4 hours later than I have departed, 6pm 4 hours later than I've ever arrived. Curious if there are downsides to arriving at dinner time, but so far I've heard arriving at dinner time is the bees knees ....

TTM interesting take. I'm looking at flying about 10 days from the solstice, so it would stay light for 4 hours after potential arrival.

But I will have my bike. Which does complicate things as the evening starts to darken. I'll have to get out of customs, and then either drag the boxed bike onto public transportation, or spend half an hour building it. If I start to ride at 8pm it will definitely have to be an hour or less and on dedicated cycle paths.

So yes, the late time of day is a potential complication! But I do have lights, ride at night very regularly, and would be able to take advantage of a good quality cycling network.

Or, local train with a big box to an easy hotel, then build at leisure in my room ....

10:pm is already later than my bedtime on some nights

IMO thats great. Board and go right to sleep.

The dep and arrival times are irrelevant to me, would not matter to me. I have experienced different arrival times in London and Paris, not FRA, ie no difference but then it depends on the person, doesn't it?

Direct flights from the West Coast take 10-12 hours max. Leaving at 10pm local you should land in Frankfurt (for example) between 8am-10am. I like those types of flights as it's easier for me to deal with a whole day when I land vs. a really short one. Plus, I can sleep on the plane, and while it's not like being home in bed it's better than trying to stay up 36 hrs or more. Drugs can help.

There is no way I would consider taking a stop enroute unless absolutely unavoidable. And even then, the layover has to be less than 3 hours or longer than 8 (because then I can rent a room and sleep between flights). It's really difficult to rest when you have to get on and off the aircraft every 5-6 hours.

Direct flights from the West Coast take 10-12 hours max. Leaving at 10pm local you should land in Frankfurt (for example) between 8am-10am.

Seattle is Pacific time zone so it's an 8-9 hour time difference to Europe. A 10pm 10 hour direct flight from west coast to LHR should arrive about the afternoon in the 4 o'clock hour and to AMS or PRG in the 5 o'clock hour local time.

My recent flight that departed IAD at 6:30pm arrived at LHR at 6:45am and if I do IAD to AMS it departs at 6:15pm and arrives 8:05am

A direct flight from SFO-AMS departing in the afternoon at 12:50pm arrives at 7:25am.

KGC thank you for working that through. You need to account for time zones.

The flight I'm looking at is scheduled to take off from the West Coast at 10:00 p.m. It is scheduled to land Frankfurt at 6:00 p.m.

Hank, My apologies for not taking the local time into account. I flew out of SEATAC to FRA last year and, as you say, landed in the afternoon local time. But that works for me.

The advantage for those flights is that you often sleep better. You also know that your arrival day is a mess, so you arrive, crash at the hotel, and awake ready to go. On the flip side, your arrival day is lost, so if you are the type to want to at least do something small that day, you can forget about it.

Since I generally just want to get to where I am going and crash, maybe walk around and get some fresh air/light exercise so I don't crash too early, I don't mind the later flights. I find the arrival day in Europe is basically wasted anyway, so I may as well arrive a bit later and then be on European time and go straight to bed. But that's me.

I like flights that arrive in the afternoon/evening, so that would work great. I don’t sleep a wink on a plane, so arriving later means I can check into my hotel immediately, explore a little, have dinner and go to bed. I don’t have to force myself to stay awake for another 12 hours or more as I would if the arrival was earlier in the day. I find that I sleep well that first night and I’m ready to go for day 2.