Originally Posted by
newyorkgeorge
Most spoke airports do because there will be people that need to take an early morning flight. If those flights turned around and went back to a hub they'd be arriving in the early morning hours. Airlines would have to discount fares to encourage people to arrive at 3AM or so and wait around another 3-5 hours for their connecting flight, getting none to little sleep. The flights would be money losers. Not to mention originating paxs say at MSY would have no aircraft available for early morning flights.
In looking at flights out I'm not sure many people want to take those super-early morning flights. I think the airlines need them to be positioned somewhere else so have them leave at 5am.
AA leaves at 527 to CLT, 532 to MIA, 557 to DFW, 651 to LAX, Spirit flies at 530 to FLL, 6am to DEN, UA 533 to IAH, B9 6am to BOS, DL 6am to ATL, 610 to LGA.
This is all before 630am. If you get to the airport 1h before, that means you get there at 530am.
I was looking at tickets and the early flights are discounted. Because nobody wants to take them.