Another London flight question

[Anonymous]

Do you prefer an early evening (around 630pm) or late evening flight (around 1030pm? We would get into London at 655am or 1040am. I kind of thinking the later flight because then more of a chance of sleeping? But then maybe earlier is better if there are delays? This is for summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you prefer an early evening (around 630pm) or late evening flight (around 1030pm? We would get into London at 655am or 1040am. I kind of thinking the later flight because then more of a chance of sleeping? But then maybe earlier is better if there are delays? This is for summer.

10:30pm because of the greater sleep potential.

[Anonymous]

The 10pm hour flights are way better. It's not a long flight. If you get on 6pm hour flight you won't be tired and by the time you are tired, they'll be getting you all up to land. They turn the lights back on and make a bunch of noise about 45 minutes to 1 hour out.

Best bet of maybe 4-5 hours of sleep is ignore any in-flight service and go to sleep right after takeoff.

[Anonymous]

Later flight. I try to sleep overnight on the plane as much as I can then push through the next day. It adjusts you to the new timezone much faster to do that.

[Anonymous]

Re: late flights. Likely the plane has to get where it needs to go, so although a delay might happen, I'm guessing you'll get there. No cancelation.

[Anonymous]

Later because I typically feel like crap when I land and want to check into my hotel as soon as I can. It’s relatively easy to kill a few hours before check-in, hard to be walking around at 7am not having slept all night knowing you won’t get into the hotel till 4pm.

[Anonymous]

Agree - later flights mean later landing and better chance you can check into your hotel.

[Anonymous]

We always do the 10pm out of IAD

[Anonymous]

The later so you will sleep. If you are checking into a hotel, the later also gives you a better chance of rooms being ready. It’s pretty miserable to land when it’s dark, get to the city and have nothing open or ready

[Anonymous]

Later the better. Get some sleep, arrive not too early to do anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you prefer an early evening (around 630pm) or late evening flight (around 1030pm? We would get into London at 655am or 1040am. I kind of thinking the later flight because then more of a chance of sleeping? But then maybe earlier is better if there are delays? This is for summer.

10:30pm because of the greater sleep potential.

This

[Anonymous]

OP here: Thanks everyone!

[Anonymous]

I fly to London 5x a year and always take the latest flight. That way, you actually sleep on the plane. The 6pm flight is just brutal.

[Anonymous]

Fully agree that later is much better, however if the arrival time is important to you, note that the late BA flight out of Dulles is very frequently delayed (I’m unfortunately on it a lot!), which sometimes they are able to make up in the air so it’s fine, but can easily be delayed around an hour or two. I never take the early flight so not sure if that is frequently delayed too - wouldn’t surprise me because BA is a sh*tshow!

[Anonymous]

FWIW, whenever I plan a later arrival into London, there are heinous delays and I end up losing most of a day in the UK. For example, the aircraft for the LHR flight was given to a much-delayed flight to Shanghai and we had to wait for another aircraft, and then the crew timed out so we had to wait for a new crew. I may just have terrible luck, but I have decided I am not meant to take that later flight and will cope with the downsides of the earlier flight.