If you think about the possibilities of connections, I could see the convenience. Instead of arriving at your scheduled TATL airport from wherever you were in Europe the night before to ensure being there on time for your mid morning TATL, or getting up to catch the first flight to your TATL departing airport and worrying about missing the flight, you could have a good last day in whatever fabulous European town you were visiting, catch an afternoon or early evening flight to LIS and have a nice sleep home, and arrive in SFO in enough time to catch your flight home.

So, I guess it depends on what your primary origin city was and your final destination.

I usually find the best TATL priced biz class flight from the east coast to somewhere on the European continent (usually it’s FRA or AMS), then book much cheaper inter European coach tickets to where I want to go.

But it usually requires at least an overnight stay in my US arrival city, and sometimes an overnight in my departing European city. This schedule could eliminate those expensive airport hotel stays.