Night flying

A red-eye flight is any flight departing late at night and arriving early the next morning. The term red-eye, common in North America, derives from the fatigue symptom of having red eyes, which can be caused or aggravated by late-night travel. The red-eye flight usually flies eastbound. The flight is usually four to six hours, less than a seven-hour full sleep, but due to time differences and prevailing jet stream winds from the west, a red-eye flight that departs around midnight arrives around 6 am or 7 am. Westbound flights that depart around midnight and arrive in the early morning are also colloquially called red-eye flights, despite the fact that those flights are significantly longer than seven or eight hours.

A red-eye flight is one that is too short to have a full night's sleep on and thus causes significant distress to optic nerves from fatigue. Flights between Los Angeles and New York are a good example, which are approximately six hours long, depart between 10 pm and 1 am and arrive between 5 am and 7 am.

The majority of transcontinental flights are operated during the day, but as of 2010, red-eye flights operate from Perth to Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, and Melbourne, and from Darwin to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Red-eye flights have previously operated from Australia to New Zealand and Fiji. Red-eye flights to Australia operate from various locations in Southeast Asia and North America, such as Scoot's flights from Singapore to Gold Coast, Sydney, and Melbourne. Jetstar offers red-eye flights between Melbourne and Wellington with the flight departing Melbourne at 1am and arriving in Wellington at 6 am.

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Wikipedia