Red Eyes: Love em, hate em, or just necessary?
 

I am sitting here in the sky club waiting for my red eye back to the east coast, and it got me thinking what is everyones opinion of red eyes? I am conflicted because i dont have to "waste" a day coming back east, but it always feels like i am just waiting & waiting & waiting & waiting for the late flight home.

So informal poll red eyes: love em, hate em, or just necessary?

Terrible, regardless of the cabin you're in. The only one I would consider flying is an LAX/SFO-JFK transon.

People who fly the SEA-MSP redeye are nuts.

I love red eyes for the very reasons you mentioned. Saving time is #1

I think the best way to describe red eyes is a love/hate relationship. :)

LAX/SAN/SFO/PDX-ATL red eyes I am good with. For some reason though I can not stand the LAS-ATL red eye. I think its because I have too much time to kill and I get bored and gamble. :)

Delta used to have a DEN-ATL red eye flight. :eek:

I book based on fare first. If a redeye is the only flight available at the lowest price on the day I need to fly - - I'm on it! I may go $20~25 more, but, that's about it. :)

So, I guess it's a toss up . . .

Get to spend an extra half day on the west coast as a trade off for crashing at home the whole next day after the redeye. :D

Oh, hey. I just flew that route a couple weeks ago :cool: Short nap indeed

I hate them. While you might lose a day flying east during the day, you still waste a day after a red-eye trying to catch up on the sleep you didn't get on the plane.

As this is not DL-specific, I am moving the thread to Travel Buzz
Obscure2k
Delta Moderator

Exactly.

i flew a PDX-EWR red-eye a few years ago and got very little done the next day (and feltblousy to boot).

Never again unless it is totally unavoidable.

I started flying TCONs for family visits (maybe 2x/year) in 1976, and for work (probably at an average rate of 6x/year) in 1982

early on, a redeye was certainly the best from an efficiency standpoint of not "losing" daytime hours in transit, particularly as I didn't have difficulty either with sleeping on the jets or powering through the arrival day ... by the time laptops came along, and time in transit began to merge into productive work time, I just wasn't going to change my routine too much

as of a month ago I've logged over 2200 commercial flights, of which 127 have been redeyes; on more than a few occasions in the past couple years, when I've been disembarking at sunrise at ATL/DTW/JFK/IAD/BWI/DCA, I've muttered to myself that I'm getting too old for this nonsense ... but two or four or six weeks later I'm doing it again

like davetravels, I make a lot of redeye bookings on the basis of cost, but I'll also be the first to admit that I make extensive use of Delta's liberal FC SDC policy to turn those $375-475 SEA-MSP-BWI trips (150% of 2300 miles) into SEA-LAX-JFK-BWI (150% of 3975 miles)

If not in lie-flat J, they are miserable. Even regular domestic F is horrible IMO and in Y no shot (I can't sleep sitting up to save my life).

If in lie-flat J, I like them in theory but always find them way shorter than I'd like. When traveling for business I suck it up and deal with it, they are a huge time saver and I typically can scrap together enough sleep to be fine the next day.

For pleasure I'd only do it if the price was too hard to ignore (and I'd likely be in Y for personal unless a special occasion or upgrade)

I need at least a 7-8 hour flight to reap the benefits of something overnight which eliminates all US redeyes and puts me right on the edge for TATL overnights.

Hate them. I can't sleep even.in F suites. I am so tired the next day.

If you can sleep on a plane, redeyes are often better than the day flights because the time passes quicker if you nod off. Flying business class helps immensely; redeyes in economy becomes nothing more than a necessary evil (like the 9pm departure PHX-JFK on Jetblue. Ugh).

The PHX-LHR one is pretty nice. You board at 7:30 PM, eat dinner at dinner time, settle in, and wake up at around 1:30 PM in London. That said, I fly it in CW so I can sleep.

It's a tossup for me. I used to love redeyes since I could sleep through from takeoff-landing. Unfortunately these days I don't get as well rested, so the day after the redeye is usually filled with a nap. Day flights are nice to do work, but I always fly economy where there isn't enough room to work on a 15" laptop. Either way, I don't get much work done so it ends up being whatever is cheapest.