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Old Apr 29, 2012 | 3:44 pm
  #30  
WHBM
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: London, England.
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The reason why these flights don't exist is because the few attempted have always got poor commercial loads, with a couple of exceptions. This is because they offer no facility for connections at one or both ends. New York to London has always managed to get away with it because of the large amount of just point-to-point traffic (and London time being one hour later than the rest of Europe is a big bonus when at the margins of the day), but even there it is just one daylight flight by each main carrier, compared to a slew of overnights. The early departure-late arrival can also mean the need to stay in an airport hotel at one, possibly both, ends.

A further issue is it is very inefficient aircraft usage. All the US carriers which do these flights can't schedule a return flight for the aircraft, it has to sit at destination overnight, and although it returns the next morning, it obviously gets back to the US well over 24 hours later, whereas daylight west, overnight east, allows connections at both ends of all flights and permits each aircraft to make a round trip each day.

So if people don't buy them, and their costs are way inflated, they don't get operated.
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