Suppose you left New York in the morning and arrived in London late at night. By the time you reached your hotel, checked in, and adjusted to the time difference, the day would essentially be over.
You would then need to sleep and recover before beginning work the next day.
For business travelers, that can mean losing valuable time.
And airlines understand that.
Airlines Want Their Aircraft Flying
There is another important reason for these schedules: airplanes are extremely expensive assets.
A modern long-range aircraft such as a Boeing 787, Boeing 777, or Airbus A350 can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
An aircraft sitting on the ground isn’t generating revenue.
Airlines therefore try to keep their planes moving whenever possible.
One common pattern is to operate a long overnight flight from North America to Europe, have the aircraft spend a relatively short period on the ground, and then send it back westward during the day.
