The Best Flight Schedule You Can Take to Europe and Why It’s So Great

I’ve written before on daytime flight options to London Heathrow, but I wanted to provide some context on why this truly is the best schedule of flights to London.

Now, for a bit of a backstory for those that aren’t aware. There’s two ways to get to London:

• You can either take a redeye flight from any departing city in the US. These flights depart in the afternoon or evening, and arrive the following morning or afternoon.
• Or, you can take a daytime flight. These flights depart in the morning and arrive in the evening the same day.

Why I Hate Red Eye Flights

Personally, I hate redeye flights. I can never truly get a full night of sleep, and when I arrive, I’m more than tempted to want to go to bed in my hotel, thus not only killing the day, but throwing off my schedule for the remainder of my trip. Redeye flights, with the exception of those departing the west cost, really can’t provide more than a few hours of sleep. If you’re leaving out of New York, for example, you’re really only left with about 4 hours of somewhat decent sleep, if you don’t count the ascent and descent. It’s even less if you decide to eat onboard. Redeye flights are no fun.

Daytime Flight Logistics

There’s only a few cities that offer daytime flight options to London, and in all cases, the only daytime flights to Europe go to London, so you won’t find any other cities. The reason for this is that London is the “closest” major city to the US, flight path wise, when going to Europe. You’ll only find daytime flights to London departing from the east coast of the US, as these are the only cities that can feasibility make it work schedule wise.

For example, American’s daily 777-200 from New York JFK leaves at 10:15am, and arrives into London at 10:10pm the same day.

Why Daytime Flights are So Great

Because you arrive the same day, you can head immediately to bed once you get into London, thus providing a realistic night of sleep. If you’re like me, I’ll tend to stay up a few hours due to being on east coast “body time,” and will sleep in till around 10a the next morning, but for the remainder of my trip, I’m back on a reasonable schedule.

If you’re connecting onward into another European city, the same theory still holds true. Instead of heading into central London, you can overnight at an airport hotel near Heathrow, get a full night of sleep, and then catch an early flight the next morning to your onward city.

The Best Reasons Why Daytime Flights are So Great

• The schedule allows you get in the same day and get a full night of sleep.
• Upgrades tend to be plentiful on these flights. If you’re looking for upgradable space, a daytime flight is much easier to clear on than a redeye.
• They’re usually less crowded than redeye flights, partly because they require business people to miss a full day of work, and because they aren’t as widely known or available as redeye flights.

Of course, in many cases, you won’t have a choice between a daytime flight and a redeye. If you’re on the west coast, you’re really stuck, unless you wanted to make a several day hop to the east coast and onward. If you’ve got to work one day, and also the next, really a redeye is the only thing possible to allow that. So, of course there’s several circumstances where it won’t work, but if you can fit it into your schedule, I think it’s really the best option to Europe.

For a full list of daytime flight options to London, look here.

If you’ve taken a daytime flight to London before, comment below with your thoughts and experience.