Is it better to fly to Europe overnight or during the day?

The best time to fly to Europe If you want to avoid jet lag as much as possible, try to find a flight that arrives in Europe in the mid-afternoon or evening. This means leaving North America in the early morning.



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Use the flight to rest and reset. With a few hours of sleep during the transatlantic flight, you'll be functional the day you land. When the pilot announces the European time, reset your mind along with your wristwatch. Don't prolong jet lag by reminding yourself what time it is back home.

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The best time to fly to Europe If you want to avoid jet lag as much as possible, try to find a flight that arrives in Europe in the mid-afternoon or evening. This means leaving North America in the early morning.

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In general, morning flights are preferable to afternoon or evening options because there are usually fewer issues earlier in the day. Morning flights are less likely to be subject to delays and cancellations for several reasons.

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The benefit of a red-eye flight is that it maximizes your time both at home and at your destination — you're flying through the night rather than losing a day to travel. That often saves you the cost of an extra night in a hotel. Red-eyes are often cheaper than day flights, too, helping travelers save money.

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Navigating at night can actually be much easier than during the day. Large conurbations and their associated street lights can be seen from miles away. Making it easy to pinpoint them and fly towards them. Roads are also much easier to pick out against the surrounding terrain.

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There are few daytime flights between North America and Europe. This is for many reasons, including the length of the flights, big time zone changes, generally insufficiently large point-to-point traffic to warrant it, less productive aircraft (most have to remain overnight at one end), and so on.

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Why do most of the international flights operate at night? Because for travel between many parts of the world, this is the most efficient schedule. For example, most flights leaving North America for Europe do so in the late afternoon and early evening. This allows arrivals in Europe early in the morning.

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Most people don't like the time wake-up times required to hit the earliest flights out of the airport, so a “first flight of the day” oftentimes offers less packed airplanes as well as easy breezy airport concourses. As a bonus, the early morning flights almost always have the best on-time records.

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Accident statistics from Plane and Pilot Magazine show about 10% of all aviation accidents occur at night. But accidents at night can be more likely to be fatal. Still, flying commercial during the day or night will be very safe overall due to pilot training under all lighting and weather conditions.

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10 Tips for Surviving an Overnight Flight
  1. Choose the right carry-on handbag. ...
  2. Pack noise-canceling headphones. ...
  3. Bring your favorite tea from home. ...
  4. Go through your usual night-time skincare routine. ...
  5. Pack an eye mask and ear plugs. ...
  6. Brush your teeth. ...
  7. Bring a portable phone charger. ...
  8. Reading material.


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Beyond delays and cancelations, early morning flights have the added perk of being less prone to turbulence.

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Nighttime or morning flights are statistically better for turbulence, compared to those in the day. Although turbulence can't be completely avoided at night, winds are often weaker and thermal convection turbulence is less, making the chances of encountering turbulence reduced.

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Flights that departed before 6 a.m. and from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. were nearly as good. Delay times increase from there. After 8 a.m., for every hour later you depart, the average delay time increases by about one minute. The average delay time peaks at 20.7 minutes from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

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Many airports around the world enforce night curfews to limit noise pollution. Whilst there are a fair few red-eye flights in the US, you might have noticed that it's not always possible to book late-night flights in some countries. That's because of airport curfews.

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Red-eye flights have been linked to weakened immune systems, increased risks of depression, and risks of heart attacks. This is because night flying interferes with your natural sleep rhythms, and changes your metabolism.

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Lufthansa Airlines – 3.69 per cent, or 2,521 cancelled. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) – 3.4 per cent, or 812 cancelled flights. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines – 2.64 per cent, or 628 cancelled flights. Germany's Eurowings – 2.47 per cent, or 835 cancelled flights.

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Do flights at night go faster? Generally speaking, winds are calmer during the night hours than during the day. Less headwind means a faster groundspeed.

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Night flying brings its own set of challenges. Fatigue becomes a potential issue for pilots even when they are relatively used to flying at night. Poor lighting in the aircraft can cause issues for navigation during night flights as well. The night sky makes it hard to read instruments and discern surface features.

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Often at night there is less air traffic, so you're more likely to get shortcuts, shaving sometimes 10 or 15 minutes off a flight time.

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Is it less scary to fly at night? Statistics say that flights during the early morning or night are less turbulent than day-time flights. These red-eye flights mean you can worry less and catch up on much-needed sleep due to a smoother flight and less worrying about turbulence.

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