Originally Posted by
tods27
As others have noted, the redeyes from DEN are just too d*mn short. With good tailwinds, the DEN-IAD flight can be under 3 hours. Thats not much sleep. I'm not sure if UA considers this in their decision.
I took the DEN-IAD redeye a couple times when they were running it and it was pretty much miserable. It was nice to have a fallback if you missed the 6:00 PM bank of flights to somewhere on the east coast (say, due to extra traffic from the mountains).
I have several friends who have taken the JetBlue redeyes to the east coast, but those are pretty miserable as well. It's usually due to cost or as noted, extra time to ski. I'm guessing that the DEN-IAD redeye starting up is in response to JetBlue.
ANY red-eye, unless in the nicest lay-flat bed, is going to be pretty miserable. But for many people, myself included, that is the only option if you need to be on the West Coast for an entire day, and be back on the East Coast by the next morning. It's either a redeye or wasting a day, and personally, I would prefer the redeye.