Originally Posted by
bennos
I suspect there's not sufficient O&D traffic for a later afternoon departure that would miss most if not all connection opportunities, and then after that you get into redeye territory (neither O&D nor connecting traffic wants a 3am arrival into MSP).
while you have a valid point with respect to traffic heading beyond MSP, one could make the counter-argument that there's a lot of potential connecting traffic arriving SEA in the late afternoon, so a ~630pm departure landing in MSP around midnight might indeed be viable
Originally Posted by
GoAmtrak
Very frustrating that there's a (seasonal?) gap of 9 hours between the last SEA-MSP of the night and the next earlier flight.
it's about positioning aircraft to optimize supply against demand: both AS and DL offer an early evening trip during the summer