Night Rotations
Some thoughts on this issue:
1) I'm not sure that passengers actually like flying deep into the night but before locos it was the only way to get a cheap flight
2) There is now far more choice of flights so why would people want to travel at night? Monarch had an extensive night programme out of Luton during the summer of 2007 but this was cut back significantly in 2008 - lack of demand?
3) Locos offer flights mid evening to the Med at times that charter airlines never did because of their varied route structure - i.e. during the summer EZY offer flights to Palma, Malaga, Alicante departing around 20.00. Most charter airlines would already have their aircraft well into their afternoon rotation by this time.
4) I can't comment on Southwest but I would guess that locos don't offer any (or many in the case of EZY) night flights as they want all of their fleet to be ready for their intensive daytime schedule the next day. I recall that the now ceased night time LTN-ATH-LTN often had an adverse knock on effect on EZY's programme.
5) I'm sure that the airlines would be falling over themselves to offer night flights if they could make money out of them; after all aircraft don't generate cash sitting on the ground. I know we all pour scorn on the abilities of airline management from time to time but this is pretty basic stuff.
As a side note, there are only 3 based Monarch aircraft at Luton during thise winter and only 4 last summer.
OLY1B