tight Trans-Atlantic itinerary...early AM flights US->Eur ?

[julip]

Hi, Non-Rev frequent flyer here...
Need help making a tight transatlantic schedule...

Passenger is leaving ATL Friday Jan 27th but can't leave UNTIL around 11pm-1am...
(already see the 10:25pm as an option, but may be too early)
(see some Qatar outbound very early morning flights that leave ATL, but think they are cargo- is it possible to get on a cargo flight anyone?? Lol this passenger (BF) has no clearance)
I understand may not be able to leave till first outbound Saturday 28th morning 6am...

destination is Krakow Poland by 4:10pm-ish or little later, Saturday Jan 28th
(it's for a wedding)

I'm having trouble finding early morning outbound flights to Europe...

What are some options from ATL to a US city that has frequent flights into Europe??? (It seems all NYC airports have europe flights later in the day?)
Once they're in Europe (anywhere) it seems there's more local Europe airline options (easyJet, etc.) to Krakow...

ATL---> _??US??_---> _??Europe??_ -->KRK

Thank you in advance! May the stand-by gods be with you!

 

[jimntx]

The cities that have "frequent" service to Europe are easy enough to name...BOS, JFK, EWR, PHL, IAD, CLT ATL MIA on the east coast. ORD, DFW, IAH, DEN, SLC in the middle. LAX, SFO, SEA on the West Coast. There are others I may have missed or I just don't know what TA service they may or may not have--such as PDX or MPL--or they are speciality one-flight/day cities, such as RDU. When Northwest still existed, MPL and DTW had a good deal of service to Europe. I don't think they do anymore.

That being said, you are more than likely not going to find an "early morning departure" for anywhere in the U.S. to Europe. Business travel still provides a lot of the financial support for TA flights. Therefore the flights are scheduled for business traveler convenience. If a flight departed the U.S. in the early morning it would arrive at any destination in Western Europe sometime between late afternoon or early evening. To the business traveler, that's a half day wasted sitting in the hotel. Business travelers prefer to arrive in the early morning. They've slept during the flight and now have the whole day for business activities. Therefore the flights leave the U.S. early to late evening to give a morning arrival.

One possibility...MCO has a lot of service to/from Europe, but as far as I know, it tends to be one flight per airline per day for the most part. And, the European destination of those flights may not give you the connectivity you need. There would be excellent connectivity on this side of the water. Just about every major city in the U.S. (and some not so major) has daily nonstop service to MCO.

Your departure time restrictions coupled with your European arrival and connection requirements make this an almost impossible itinerary creation job. For instance, AA at DFW has 3 flights/day to LHR. They depart at 5:10pm, 6:40pm, and 10:15pm arriving at 8:00am, 9:35am, and 1:10pm the following day. (And, I bet if AA could get a better arrival slot for that last one, it would be arriving sometime the following morning like the other two.) AA also has daily nonstops from DFW to CDG and MAD--departures between 5 and 6pm with arrivals around 8-9am the following day. These times are typical departure/arrival times for TA flights from almost any U.S. city with TA service.