I’m a huge aviation nerd, and I geek out over flight numbers and operations as much as I do about airline cabin products (which I write more extensively about). Flight scheduling is one of the areas I’m really interested in, as it has a huge effect on traveller choices – different travellers that travel for different reasons favour different schedules, and airlines create schedules that maximise consumer demand, while also minimising the airline’s overall operating costs.
In this post, I wanted to explore some more eccentric flight schedules. There are some that are non-ideal for passengers but good for airline operations, and others that I can’t quite explain. Also, due to my locational bias I’m more aware of flight schedules happening within Asia and Europe (and between the two regions), so I’d be super curious to hear other flight schedules you’ve identified. Have you flown any of these before, and who was onboard these flights/how full were they?
Normal flight scheduling sometimes leaves non-ideal flight times
Generally, an airline will prioritise keeping their aircraft on the ground outside of their hub for as short a time as possible. This makes morning shorthaul flights particularly desirable, as airlines can just turn their planes around within the hour and operate a flight back from its outstation to its home base.
Sometimes, in order to make different schedules work for a different customer segment, planes will either fly overnight if they can, or run a morning flight out of the destination the next day. For example, Cathay Pacific runs a night flight from Hong Kong to Singapore which is popular with Singaporean business and leisure travellers alike (who can maximise time in Hong Kong without staying an extra night), and that plane turns around and operates a redeye which works for hardcore travellers that want to maximise time at their destination (or make their business schedule work).
This is most doable for high-frequency shorthaul flights, though the same principle applies to longhaul flights in terms of minimising the time a plane is on the ground outside of its hub – for example, all of Finnair’s flights to Asia leave very late at night, arrive Asia in the late afternoon, so they can operate early evening flights back to Helsinki.
Finnair is very good at aircraft utilisation, with most longhaul aircraft not being at outstations for over 2 hours
Most of the time, airlines still schedule flights in a way that makes sense for passengers. Using the above example, Finnair’s Shanghai flight leaves Shanghai at 8:50 PM and arrives Helsinki at 5:55 AM. Most passengers on the flight would’ve spent a bulk of the day in Shanghai, and can make their morning connections in Helsinki, or get into the city for an early start.
Are these flights ideal? Not really – especially if you’re connecting into western Europe, you end up being woken up to eat breakfast when it’s 12-1 AM at your final destination. However, it’s easy to write the story of a passenger who would benefit from a flight like this, even though the schedule was planned primarily for the airline.
Below are examples of flights where I’m struggling to write the story of a passenger who would enjoy this flight. Of course these will be a little Asia/Europe-biased since I investigate these places the most, so if you’ve got more confusing flight times, please let me know.
Emirates’ 6 AM Flight from Sydney to Dubai
Let’s start with the one that motivated me to write this post. Emirates has a 6 AM flight out of Sydney. No, it’s not the frequency that connects from Christchurch – an Emirates A380 (now a 777 due to geopolitics) leaves Dubai for Sydney at 2:15 AM arriving 10:05 PM, and leaves…at 6 AM, arriving Dubai at 2:10 PM.
Sydney has a curfew at 11 PM, so it makes sense that the plane doesn’t leave that night. However, surely there’d be a positive effect on yield if the flight left an hour or so later, assuming that this wasn’t a slot-related issue? The 2:10 PM arrival actually misses the afternoon rush to Europe, so the only flights I can see people connecting to are shorthaul flights to India, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, with not many other longhaul flights arriving Dubai at a similar time.
It’s interesting that out of the three daily flights between Sydney and Dubai, this was the second one to be reinstated since the airline started restarting operations. Clearly there’s demand here, but I’m curious to know who makes use of this 6 AM departure (especially given many will be arriving the airport at 3-4 AM).
Emirates’ 6 AM departure time from Sydney is…random
Hainan Airlines’ 3 AM flight to Auckland
It’s quite common for flights down under from Asia to depart late at night, and arrive in the late morning or early afternoon (I took one of these flights recently). However, given Auckland is five hours ahead of China, a 2:55 AM Haikou-Auckland flight actually gets into Auckland at 6:10 PM. So why not leave a couple of hours earlier at a sensible late-night time (e.g. 12 AM), and get into Auckland earlier?
Well, this is an aircraft optimisation puzzle – the Auckland-Haikou flight leaves at 8:45 PM and arrives Haikou at 5 AM on the dot, leaving for many morning connection opportunities from Haikou into other areas of China and Asia. This means that the 787 sits in Auckland for the minimum amount of time, whereas a flight that landed earlier and had a similar turnaround would’ve landed Haikou undesirably early in the morning.
There’s a fair bit of connecting traffic from mainland China that gets into Haikou quite late (including this flight which tags into Chongqing), so many actually are leaving their hometowns in China on “sensible” nighttime flights, before transiting in Haikou in the wee hours of the morning.
Hainan Airlines’ Auckland schedule is unconventional for an Asia-Oceania flight
Air India and Virgin Atlantic’s 10am Heathrow flights that arrive Delhi at 12am
Generally, I’m quite used to a Europe-Asia flight that leaves Europe in the late morning, and arrives Asia very early the next day. I’ve taken a couple of these flights before, and they’re some of my least favourite – you don’t really get much sleep on the plane, and arrive early the next day tired and groggy. However, Air India and Virgin Atlantic both have 10am flights that arrive Delhi very, very, very early in the morning – in fact, so early that some would still consider it the day prior, as those flights arrive just after midnight the next day.
Well, I know why these flights are scheduled at these times. Heathrow is heavily slot controlled, and realistically there is always demand on the flight from London to Delhi. I’d probably even find it nicer as a flight time – you don’t have to power through the day once you get to Delhi, and I’m okay being awake after midnight. However, it’s still odd to wake up early to catch a longhaul flight knowing it’ll land at midnight the next day.
Most other routes between Europe and South Asia leave in the late morning and arrive very early the next day, or in the afternoon/evening and arrive a few hours earlier on the clock the next day. As far as I know, these Heathrow to Delhi flights are in the minority in that regard.
Air India’s morning flight from Heathrow lands in Delhi…very, very, very early in the morning
Cathay Pacific’s 10 PM flight from Tokyo Narita to Hong Kong
Sometimes, flights that leave their hub to a shorthaul outstation in the afternoon can come back quite late in the evening. For example, Cathay Pacific has flights between Hong Kong and Singapore (in both directions) that leave at 8 PM and arrive after midnight. These are quite typical for maximising aircraft utilisation, particularly for the redeye back from Singapore, and generate demand from leisure travellers that want to maximise time abroad without paying an extra night for a hotel.
That being said, Cathay Pacific’s 10 PM flight from Tokyo Narita takes this a step further. CX 501 leaves Tokyo at 10 PM, and arrives Hong Kong at 1:55 AM. As far as I remember Cathay Pacific used to have two morning flights out of Tokyo Narita (which are the “return” legs of their afternoon flight to Tokyo and their redeye), though CX 501 was moved to 10 PM in July 2024, and stayed with this new schedule ever since.
This minimises the total amount of time that planes are on the ground, though a 2 AM arrival into Hong Kong must be rough even for the most avid of travellers.
Cathay Pacific is using an A330 most days for their late-night flight out of Tokyo
While I won’t talk about all of Cathay Pacific’s weird routes, another classic strangely timed flight is one of their three daily flights to Guangzhou. This flight leaves at 1:15 AM and arrives at 2:20 AM (before the early-morning business traveller return flight, which leaves at 5 AM and arrives at 6:25 AM, presumably popular with businesspeople in the manufacturing industry) – is the 1:15 AM flight a redeye, or is it good for anybody?
Greater Bay Airlines’ Extreme Redeye to Fukuoka
On similar lines, while it’s quite common for airlines to operate redeye flights from Hong Kong to Japan, Greater Bay Airlines’ example is a more extreme one. The airline operates a redeye that leaves Hong Kong at 2:45 AM, and arrives Fukuoka at 7:20 AM every Friday to Sunday.
I can guess why the flight is timed this way – Fukuoka has a strict curfew due to its proximity to the city, so the flight is actually timed as early into the evening as is possible to honour this curfew. That being said, given the short flight time and the late curfew, I would’ve expected a redeye departure slot to have been best allocated to another airport.
Hong Kong Airlines also has a 3 AM departure to Osaka, though that flight’s slightly longer.
Fukuoka Airport is very close to the city, so it has a curfew until 7 AM (meaning that redeye flights from Hong Kong depart quite late)
easyJet’s proper redeye from Tenerife to London
Due to airport curfews (or lack thereof) these strange flight times are less common in Europe, though let me still pinpoint a few. While it’s quite common for late-night flights to arrive or 1 or 2am at Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, this flight takes the cake, in my opinion.
Every Wednesday, easyJet operates a flight from Tenerife (TFS) to London Gatwick (LGW) that leaves at 12:10 AM, and arrives at 4:20 AM. The flight time for this flight number (U2 8038) is undesirable all days of the week, though it’s quite uncommon for a low-cost carrier to have a “proper” redeye flight.
This must be a real pain for those arriving in London at 4:20 AM, and I can’t imagine this would be super popular for travellers going back to work the next day.
A proper redeye easyJet flight? Um, no thanks
Eurowings and TUI’s 4am battle from Hanover to Palma de Mallorca
While we’re here in Europe, a couple of times a week, Eurowings and TUI have a flight from Hanover to Palma de Mallorca that leaves at 3:15 AM (Eurowings) or 4:25 AM (TUI) in the morning, arriving at 5:45 AM and 7 AM respectively. While both airlines also have a 5 AM flight operating the same route (which operates with much more consistency), I’d consider that flight to be more typical of a holidaymaker’s flight schedule, whereas the 3 AM flight is more hard-core.
Many of the other flights leave in the afternoon or evening, which you might be surprised to know don’t actually command much more of a price premium, despite obviously being hugely more body clock-friendly.
Hanover to Palma de Mallorca is a high-volume leisure route, and some flights per week depart between 3 and 5 AM
Conclusion
Airlines schedule flights based on a plethora of factors, though the biggest priorities are usually passenger demand and aircraft utilisation. Here are some flights where the aircraft utilisation factor has clearly been the main priority, or passenger demand has worked in a way that I haven’t expected. I’m curious to hear any that you’ve identified.
What are the oddest flight schedules you’ve either noticed, or experienced? For those who have been onboard one of these flights, who uses them most/how full are they?
