Preference for Westbound Redeyes
 

I've wondered the same thing, for both directions as well. I travel LAS-BOS frequently, and think I could manage a 9pm departure from LAS to get to the office after landing in the morning, but unfortunately they don't run Mint on the night flight. For Westbound, I'd try it too since I often get home after having slept 3-4 hours on the plane and am then up until 3am...

All of the major carriers running transcons (and by that I mean East Coast to West Coast flights, not just the historic premium JFK-LAX/SFO) disagree with you. They fly west in the evening and do eastbound redeyes.

Not every carrier is right on every issue, but on the issue of Westbound TCON's their marketing data apparently agrees. That leads me to believe that your personal preference -- not to suggest that they are bad or wrong -- are not in line with the market.

In your case, you had what amounts to a 7-hour flight (01:00 xBOS to 05:00 SFO). That is longer than the ordinary flight. With an 01:00 scheduled departure and a typical arrival of 04:00 or thereabouts at SFO, people have stayed up late the night before and are at SFO too early to do much of anything for several hours. Too early to check-in at a hotel and too early to head for a meeting / office.

FYI for late arrivals into SFO > BART doesn't operate, so you're on your own if your headed to the city.

Use the BART Trip Planner to look up BART departure and arrival times. Sat: 6:30 a.m. to 11:53 p.m. Sun: 8:00 a.m. to 11:53 p.m. Sunday morning, SFO Airport trains from downtown San Francisco start at 8:45 a.m.

Yeah, in my opinion part of the *definition* of red-eye is that it's eastbound! Since you "gain" time, you don't usually end up tired. Also, for operational purposes, planes would sit too long if they left at 1 or 2am eastern.