The coming half year I'll be flying back and forth to London quite frequently and I'm quite shocked (and annoyed) that there seem to be no late evening flights! The latest flights leave around 20:00-20:30, meaning you have to head to the airport by 18:00, thus missing the whole evening in London. How is this possible for a route with 40+ daily flights, served by 5 airlines and serving all 6 London airports?

I understand not everyone wants to arrive at AMS too late, especially if their destination is far from the the airport. However, most important destinations still have sufficient public transport at later hours. In the mornings there are flights leaving LON as early a 06:00, which means facing the same transport issues as wel as waking up in the middle of the night. So how come these flights exist, but not evening flights between let's say 21:00 and midnight?

I know the airports have curfews, but those aren't nearly as early as the current late LON-AMS flights. Also, AMS is of course an hour later than Londen. This means a 23:00 flight wouldn't arrive at AMS until around 01:00, but is getting home at 01:00-02:00 really any worse than leaving home at 03:00-04:00 to catch an early 06:00 flight?

Am I the only one missing these late flights? And is there anyone who can give some more insight to why these flights don't exist? Is there anything I'm overlooking? Or is the demand just not there?

FlyingHollander wrote:

The coming half year I'll be flying back and forth to London quite frequently and I'm quite shocked (and annoyed) that there seem to be no late evening flights! The latest flights leave around 20:00-20:30, meaning you have to head to the airport by 18:00, thus missing the whole evening in London. How is this possible for a route with 40+ daily flights, served by 5 airlines and serving all 6 London airports?

I understand not everyone wants to arrive at AMS too late, especially if their destination is far from the the airport. However, most important destinations still have sufficient public transport at later hours. In the mornings there are flights leaving LON as early a 06:00, which means facing the same transport issues as wel as waking up in the middle of the night. So how come these flights exist, but not evening flights between let's say 21:00 and midnight?

I know the airports have curfews, but those aren't nearly as early as the current late LON-AMS flights. Also, AMS is of course an hour later than Londen. This means a 23:00 flight wouldn't arrive at AMS until around 01:00, but is getting home at 01:00-02:00 really any worse than leaving home at 03:00-04:00 to catch an early 06:00 flight?

Am I the only one missing these late flights? And is there anyone who can give some more insight to why these flights don't exist? Is there anything I'm overlooking? Or is the demand just not there?

Certainly not as common as the morning flights to LON. Helped by the time difference however.

The last flight is a 2045 getting in at 2300 from LCY. Considering you only have to be at the airport 30-45mins before the flight maximum that would allow a full work day in London which is all most care about.

Have a look at Copenhagen - Berlin. I needed a late departure from CPH and thought that there must be such a flight between two European capitals.
Nope...

FlyingHollander wrote:

I know the airports have curfews, but those aren't nearly as early as the current late LON-AMS flights. Also, AMS is of course an hour later than Londen. This means a 23:00 flight wouldn't arrive at AMS until around 01:00.

The reasons are relatively straightforward.

- Noise rules
- Demand
- Time

1. LHR operations are severely restricted between 23.30-06.00 hours, so late departures can not be delayed by much or they hit restrictions (check FRA for this problem).
2. AMS has strict noise rules, flights arriving between 23.00-06.00 hours count for 10x daylight flights. A burden operators are unwilling to carry year round.
3. BA does not operate a late connecting bank at T5, so late LHR departures would carry local passengers LON-AMS only. Low demand!
4. KLM does not operate a mid-night connecting bank at AMS, so late AMS arrivals would carry local passengers LON-AMS only. Low demand!
5. The one hour time difference works against you, as 22.00hrs at LHR = 23.00hrs at AMS.
6. So you must depart LON at 20.30 at the latest, to ensure arrival before 23.00hrs in AMS, which is precisely what the airlines do.

mchei wrote:

Have a look at Copenhagen - Berlin. I needed a late departure from CPH and thought that there must be such a flight between two European capitals.
Nope...

Most late flights between European cities leave at around 21:00-22:00 (9pm-10pm) unless they are overnight stoppers with a short flight time then they usually leave around 22:30-23:00. This is also the case of CPH-TXL/SXF. The last flight leave at 21:05

FlyingHollander wrote:

I know the airports have curfews, but those aren't nearly as early as the current late LON-AMS flights. Also, AMS is of course an hour later than Londen. This means a 23:00 flight wouldn't arrive at AMS until around 01:00, but is getting home at 01:00-02:00 really any worse than leaving home at 03:00-04:00 to catch an early 06:00 flight?

Yes, those curfews are as early as the current late flights.

Amsterdam airport closes for normal operations at 23:00, after that it's only opened very limited for night operations which are extremely expensive and actively discouraged. Therefor you cannot have a 01:00 arrival at Amsterdam. The latest possible arrival is 23:00, which means a 21:00 departure from London. That is if the plane is staying in Amsterdam for the night, after all there are no departures after 23:00.

A London based plane would therefor need to arrive even earlier, with half an hour turnaround time they need to arrive before 22:30 to depart before 23:00. This means they need to depart London before 20:30.

Of course mostly flights will be even earlier than that. Every airline wants to have the arrivals and departures at the mentioned times, but there's limited capacity. The rest will have to shift forward, meaning an even earlier flight.

Please don't slaughter me for suggesting this on an aviation forum, but...what about the train?... What time is the last departure for Amsterdam?

AMS used to have very late evening departures to AUA/CUR + Latin America, but not anymore.
Not sure if LON (all airports) has any late evening departures to major European airports without curfew.
And it seems that STN is the only LON airport open 24/7.

MalevTU134 wrote:

Please don't slaughter me for suggesting this on an aviation forum, but...what about the train?... What time is the last departure for Amsterdam?

Oh, never mind. Just saw that the last €urostar for Amsterdam leaves at 17.16 from St. Pancras. The 19.34 departure only goes as far as Brussels. Why that train doesn't go all the way to Amsterdam is more of a mystery to me. Would have arrived around 00.30 to Amsterdam Centraal.

Probably due to the reasons provided by other users above - however no, you are not the only one missing these late flights. I work for a British company and have to spend a week there about every other month, and considering a one-hour commute to LHR or LCY, it's always a hurry after the end of the office day to make my flight - definitely no time to get back to my hotel to collect my luggage, so I always have to carry my suitcase around the whole day I'm flying back to Amsterdam. The last Eurostar+Thalys (transfer Brussels) option isn't great either, leaving around 6PM.

MalevTU134 wrote:

MalevTU134 wrote:

Please don't slaughter me for suggesting this on an aviation forum, but...what about the train?... What time is the last departure for Amsterdam?

Oh, never mind. Just saw that the last €urostar for Amsterdam leaves at 17.16 from St. Pancras. The 19.34 departure only goes as far as Brussels. Why that train doesn't go all the way to Amsterdam is more of a mystery to me. Would have arrived around 00.30 to Amsterdam Centraal.

new service. started out 2x daily. Will go 3x daily (depending brexit) this year.

No direct AMS-LON trains due to security needing to be installed at AMS/RTM.

However you can easilly catch the last BRU-LON train from Amsterdam. AMS-BRU is nearly 2x hour by train.

SASViking wrote:

Most late flights between European cities leave at around 21:00-22:00 (9pm-10pm) unless they are overnight stoppers with a short flight time then they usually leave around 22:30-23:00. This is also the case of CPH-TXL/SXF. The last flight leave at 21:05

Thank you! And to be honest with you: I needed it once last year. Nothing that one couldn’t rearrange.
The poor connection between HAM and CPH is something that is a true pain, by train and plane. It caught myself driving the route more than once last year...

mchei wrote:

SASViking wrote:

Most late flights between European cities leave at around 21:00-22:00 (9pm-10pm) unless they are overnight stoppers with a short flight time then they usually leave around 22:30-23:00. This is also the case of CPH-TXL/SXF. The last flight leave at 21:05

Thank you! And to be honest with you: I needed it once last year. Nothing that one couldn’t rearrange.
The poor connection between HAM and CPH is something that is a true pain, by train and plane. It caught myself driving the route more than once last year...

I agree with you on CPH-HAM. The trains are awful, only 3-4 per day and they're often late because they miss the ferry. However that'll improve massively when the Femern tunnel opens in 2028 (it's a long time I know). Then there'll be an hourly ICE service on the route with a journey time of 3 1/2 hours-ish. SAS have sadly also cut down on the route. About 2-3 years ago, when they had competition from EasyJet they operated 2 daily A320 series and 3 daily CRJ-900. Now It's 2 daily ATR-72, 2 daily CRJ-900 and 1 daily CRJ-1000. The CRJ flights are very often late because CityJet and Air Nostrum are rubbish. And SAS will probably cut the route completely when the tunnel opens

Perfect example of how little is thought of airline passengers and their requirements
No such concerns and problems in EE and the CIS

eirflot wrote:

Perfect example of how little is thought of airline passengers and their requirements
No such concerns and problems in EE and the CIS

Or rather, a perfect example of thought and consideration being given to those living under the flight paths at Western European airports.

factsonly wrote:

2. AMS has strict noise rules, flights arriving between 23.00-06.00 hours count for 10x daylight flights. A burden operators are unwilling to carry year round.

So the issue is at AMS in this case, rather than LON as I would have thought... I wasn't aware of these rules and it surprises me particularly as HV has quite a few flights arriving past 23:00. HV flights are not known to be high yielding, so what is their reasoning regarding this?

Wednesdayite wrote:

a perfect example of thought and consideration being given to those living under the flight paths at Western European airports.

I am perfectly fine giving people around the airport some rest at night, but then I wonder how the times between 23:00 and 06:00 were determined.

FlyingHollander wrote:

factsonly wrote:

AMS has strict noise rules, flights arriving between 23.00-06.00 hours count for 10x daylight flights. (...)

(...) I wasn't aware of these rules and it surprises me particularly as HV has quite a few flights arriving past 23:00. HV flights are not known to be high yielding, so what is their reasoning regarding this?

Good question. Transavia had 26 arrivals last night during 23.00 and 06.00. The coming night they will have 24. I believe these are the numbers for practically every night. So Amsterdam Airport could operate tens of thousands day flights extra per year if only Transavia stopped flying after 23.00?

MartijnNL wrote:

Good question. Transavia had 26 arrivals last night during 23.00 and 06.00. The coming night they will have 24. I believe these are the numbers for practically every night. So Amsterdam Airport could operate tens of thousands day flights extra per year if only Transavia stopped flying after 23.00?

That would depend on what would happen to those flights. If they would just adjust their arrival times to an earlier arrival, then no. After all, a slot is a slot and it doesn't matter at what time it's being used. If they would totally cancel those flights, then yes. This would mean the slots would be freed up.

By the way, on an average of 25 late arrivals per day this would come down to 9125 late arrivals per year. So no tens of thousands, just under ten thousand.

The problem for Transavia is that they got nowhere else to go for late arrivals. The regional airports close down strictly at 23:00, Amsterdam is the only one that is open. So I guess they just accept the penalty for late night arrivals, it's the only option they got other than making fewer flying hours a day which also costs money. Alternatively I could see them doing some overnight return flights to destinations that are open at night. They leave in the evening just before 23:00, arrive at their destination somewhere in the middle of the night and are back home first thing the next morning. However, how many destinations are open at night?

factsonly wrote:

I know the airports AMS has strict noise rules, flights arriving between 23.00-06.00 hours count for 10x daylight flights.

So what does this mean? I thought if you skip one flight between 23.00 and 06.00 you can add ten during the day. In that way you could easily get to ten of thousands of extra flights yearly.

But now I understand that one night flight counts as ten day flights, but only for noise statistics and not for landing rights.