Have you ever booked a flight for a late night departure to save money and wondered why it is called a “red-eye” flight? This term is commonly used for any flights that leave between 10 p.m. & 1 a.m. It expresses the fatigue that results from traveling in the middle of the night! In the United States, most of these flights are from the west coast to the east coast, so there is a time change of several hours involved as well. If you take a nonstop flight out of Los Angeles at 11:00 p.m. and arrive in New York at 7:30 a.m., you miss an entire night of rest.
With spring break season upon us and summer around the corner, many of us will soon be traveling. Here are a couple simple survival strategies for these “red-eye” flights: stay away from caffeine, keep the lights above your seat off, and don’t use the personal fan above your head. Use of artificial tears can also help to prevent the onset of the above-mentioned “red-eye.”
Happy Traveling!
Bart Wiggenhorn, Technician with Milwaukee Eyecare Associates
