Are flights ever scheduled for midnight?
Oct 13, 2023 | 7:00 am
#1
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Are flights ever scheduled for midnight?
At busy 24 hour airports, plenty of flights are scheduled to depart at 23:55, 00:05, and sometimes even 23:59 and 00:01, but I've never seen one scheduled at 00:00 exactly. Preventing passenger confusion seems to be a good reason not to do this (plenty of people already show up the wrong day to flights between midnight and 1 am), but are flights ever scheduled to depart anywhere at midnight anyway, present or past? Or are there technical reasons not to do this as well?
Similarly, flights also don't seem to be scheduled to arrive at exactly midnight either, even though there's no risk of passengers showing up on the wrong day in that case.
Similarly, flights also don't seem to be scheduled to arrive at exactly midnight either, even though there's no risk of passengers showing up on the wrong day in that case.
Oct 13, 2023 | 7:41 am
#2
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True, but that's replaced by the risk of those coming to greet them at the airport showing up on the wrong day.
I think avoiding date ambiguity is probably the main reason why flights are not scheduled for 00:00 departures.
For flights departing past midnight, I always make a point to state 'flight leaves at xx:xx, night of <day-1>, early morning of <day>.
Oct 13, 2023 | 8:04 am
#3
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The ambiguity has effects beyond folks showing up the wrong day. Things like one-year ticket expiration, "same day" flight change, flight date for frequent flyer postings - 11:59 pm vs 12:01 am affect all these, so why risk upsetting customers? "why won't you let me standby onto the midnight flight???