I've become a convert to daytime flights from the U.S. to Europe. For the past four trips I have taken an early monring flight from JFK to LHR.
I alzo know there is a morning flight from BOS to LHR.
Does anyone know of any other morning flights from the U.S. to Europe?
Not from here.
United:
08:35 departure from EWR -- arriving 20:40 LHR on a 777 nonstop
08:30 departure from IAD -- arriving 20:55 LHR on a 757 nonstop
Just doing a quick check, didn't find anything else.
I fly the EWR - LHR flight when I can. The bigger plane has nicer roomier seats than the 757. It is just impossible to get to EWR early enough the same day from Denver, so i have to fly in the night before and spend the night somewhere near the airport. (Would be the same for IAD.)
I love daytime flights and have taken them from Boston, EWR and JFK. British Air and Virgin Atlantic offer them too.
Best part is you hardly have any jet lag when you wake up the next day.
I wonder if there are any daytime flights to anywhere else besides the UK?
I believe there was one briefly from Philly to London on American after they took over USAir, though USAir did not have that flight. Then, suddenly, there seemed to be too many direct flights Philly to London and that option disappeared. BA has also cut one of its Philly flights. Boo. I don't fly American because they don't have economy plus (I know it is coming), but I was ready to for the day flight. Getting to Newark via Amtrak early enough in the morning seems to be difficult (I have local train connections to make). I may bite the bullet and stay overnight in EWR.
I look forward to trying this out.
United also has lots of flights to Europe that leave SFO between 07:00 and 10:00, but all have layovers (some as long as 12 hours) before the segment that actually gets you to Europe resulting in the same overnight type of flight I think the point of this was trying to avoid, so I don't count those.
Frank II: I second the advice to post at Flyertalk. However, I can tell you now that I don't believe there are any daytime flights from the US to cities other than London (which makes me sad, as I am a fan of these too.)
The main reason is that these daytime flights generally leave quite early in the morning in the US or arrive fairly late at night in London. This means that it is difficult for anyone who needs to make a connection, either from another US city or to another European city. Taking some of the flights mentioned earlier, if you arrive at LHR at 9 pm, it's basically too late to make a connection to anywhere else in Europe; if you're leaving EWR at 8:30 am, you'd have to get up impossibly early to make a connection from somewhere else in the US (Cincinnati is roughly a 2-hour flight: to make an 8:30 am departure from EWR you'd need a Cincinnati-NYC flight departing sometime around 5:30 am at the latest, which would not be very popular.)
So this means that from an economic perspective these daytime flights basically have to rely on a sufficient number of "O&D passengers," or "origin & destination passengers" -- passengers who are not making any connections on either end. London is basically the only market strong enough to support these kinds of flights, and you'll notice they are from major US markets only - NY, Boston, Chicago, DC, Toronto.
In addition, as mentioned, London is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast while almost all of continental Western Europe is 7 hours ahead. Given that many European airports have curfews (Frankfurt bans landings after 11 pm), it makes very late arrivals, and late connections from London infeasible. There are also economic reasons about the usage of aircraft, and finally a lot of people don't like taking these daytime flights because they feel they are "wasting" a day.
I take the afternoon flight leaving SFO anytime between 2 to 4 pm, therefore arriving in London, Paris CDG or Frankfurt FRA ca 10 to 11 am, ie, a scheduled non stop 11 hr flight.
Just a point of correction. London is +8 hours from the west coast and + 5 for the east coast. Add an additional hour for much of continental Europe.
ETA: There's a period of time when daylight savings time starts and ends when this is different
Thanks for the correction Rocket!
Frank,
I usually take the morning flight on United out of IAD.
On Kayak, there is a filter under flight quality where you can avoid red eye flights.
Delta has a flight around 9 a.m. from LAX to Milan, but it has a crazy 48 minute transfer time at JFK.
Then you have another problem. Take the morning flight, you have to change at least once Take the late afternoon flight, say at 4 pm, it is a direct flight. Then you have to choose. I take the late afternoon direct one.
