No Longer Limited to Red-Eye Flights to Europe

While there are plenty of cheap traveloptions to Europe, including cheap airplane tickets,discount hotel rooms, and cheap vacation packages,until recently most flights between the U.S. and Europe required flyingovernight on red-eye flights.

Previously, airlines based in North America heading toEurope typically scheduled flights to depart in the late afternoon or evening toarrive in Europe the next morning. Thistiming allowed each plane to easily maintain a daily round-trip schedule withenough time in Europe for routine maintenance and servicing.

While possible, in the past there have been only a very feweastbound nonstops operating during the day. Among legacy (very large/well established) airlines, the only daytimenonstops to Europe are to London: British Airways from Boston; American fromChicago; American, British Airways, Delta, United, and Virgin Atlantic from NewYork/Newark; Air Canada from Toronto; and United from Washington, D.C.

This year Norwegian Air has identified daytime flightsbetween the U.S. and Europe to be an underserved market. It has added an additional daily nonstop toLondon/Gatwick as a daytime flight. Theplane leaves London early enough in the morning to arrive in New York mid-morningand returns to London before midnight. NorwegianAir plans to add a second daily round-trip flight between Dublin and New YorksStewart International Airport that will leave Dublin early in the morning andreturn to Dublin late that evening.

Currently no airline operates daytime flights anywhere elsein Europe, but given Norwegians increasing presence in Paris, it could easilydecide to test the demand for a daytime flight from Paris to Stewart or perhapsBoston.

Domestically the routes where red-eye flights are the onlyoption are eastbound flights from Anchorage to Denver, Los Angeles, andMinneapolis. Flying on JetBlue, red-eyeflights are exclusively offered from Portland, Sacramento, or Seattle to NewYork.