Originally Posted by
phillyjoe
I absolutely love day flights to Europe.
I have flown on AA to LHR from JFK, BOS, and ORD. The flights typically leave around 9 AM and arrive in London 9 to 10 PM.
I have flown lots of the overnight trans-Atlantic (TATL) flights. I always seem to arrive around 8 AM and am tired for the next 2 days.
With the daytime flights, I arrive around 10 PM (5 PM to my east coast body clock). I get to my hotel or destination by 2 AM (9 PM back home) and have a reasonable rest. To make a 9 AM flight required me to get up by 6, so I catch some rest on the flights.
I have found the day flights the easiest way to avoid jet lag.
Some folks say, "But you miss a whole day." Well, you DO miss a whole jet-lagged day.
I find the opposite - by travelling during the day, my body clock doesn't seem to adjust as quickly - if I get on a plane as it is getting dark, and get off in the morning, my body just thinks it is short on sleep, but I find it very quick to adjust to the new timezone. I am a little tired that day, as I don't sleep on planes, and may have an hour's cat nap in the afternoon, but typically I will do something straight off the plane, like shopping, have lunch, and possibly a nap, and then be fine to go on the have dinner, bed at normal time etc.