Originally Posted by sadiqhassan

I had always thought a 3am departure ex JFK made sense but I now realize that it doesn't because connections to India leave late evening (and EK has a lot of transfer pax onto India.) There is a second bank around 0400am but that means even longer layovers if the flight were to arrive around 11pm.

DEL 2230 (also a 0440am though)
BOM 2230 (also a 0400am)
COK 2205 (also 0340am)
MAA 2100 (also 0200am)
BLR 2200 (no early morning option)
HYD 2200 (also 0345am)
TRV 2155 (no early morning option)

The current JFK flight allows excellent connections to all these cities. If it left later, connections would become quite poor.

Cheersm