Today’s reader question comes from my sister, who posted on the Points With a Crew Facebook page. I thought I’d also make a separate post of it to see if we could get some more thoughts from others. I mean what’s the point of being a “famous” travel blogger if you can’t help answer your sister’s travel questions!
Kerry is flying from California to visit us here in Ohio later on this year, and is flying solo with her 3 young kids.
I need advice, from Dan and whoever wants to chime in. Is it better to go on a plane with young kids on an earlier flight or afternoon flight? Kids are 6, 7.5 and 9, and the 6-year-old is cranky on a good day. I could potentially get a 7am flight or take the afternoon one and make my mom pick us up at 1am (cringe). My kids have never flown before, and I have no idea how it will go. I know I can’t really sleep on a plane…it remains to be seen if they will be able to. Advice is much appreciated, especially on how to entertain them and any tips!
My thoughts on an earlier flight or a later flight
There is a wide variety of information on how to entertain kids on a flight. But what I thought was interesting was the concept of deciding between taking an earlier flight or a later flight, and how that would work with kids.
One thing that is a bit tricky is the 3 hour time change. A 1 a.m. arrival sounds horrible (and it will be bad for those picking you up at the airport), but it would only be 10 p.m. California time for your kids
If you do take the earlier flight, that 7 a.m. flight likely means a 4 a.m. wakeup call in order to get everyone up and out the door in time to be at the airport in plenty of time. I’ve heard that the airport can be busy early in the morning… 🙂
A lot depends on how your kids do in the morning or evening, but I would lean towards taking the earlier flight. The main reason would be IRROPS, or irregular operations, which is code for “stuff goes wrong”. That could be anything related to weather, plane malfunctions, or anything else that disrupts the flight schedule. If you take the early flight, if something goes wrong, you might still make it to your final destination later in the day. If you’re on a later flight, and something goes wrong, then you might be stuck in an unfamiliar connecting city, (not) sleeping at the airport.
Now it’s your turn!
If you’ve flown with young kids on a long (cross-country) flight – give your thoughts on whether it’s better to take an earlier flight or later flight!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I’ve done this solo with my kids twice. I strongly prefer the late afternoon flights. My kids are better behaved staying up a few hours late. Plus, coming from CA they won’t feel like it’s 1am when they arrive. Getting up early means every part of the morning will be a struggle. Trying to juggle sleepy, grouchy kids and all their bags is no fun at 5 am.
I agree with you on the earlier flight — especially if it’s the kids’ first time on an airplane. I was 6 years old when I went on my first flight and I recall how super excited I was —- that I actually ended up not sleeping that night! Even though your kids will have to wake up at 4am, I have a feeling they’ll be too excited to sleep. Good luck!
If it’s not their first flight, then taking a later flight may work better.
I have limited experiences with my 1-year-old, day flights LAS/BOI/LAS, day flights LAS/SEA/LAS, day flight LIR/IAH/LAS, and red-eye LAS/IAH/LIR.
It will be a LOOOONG time before I try another red-eye with him. He got no sleep and was miserable the whole way.
He was fine on the day flights, in fact, I think he was having fun.
We’re just going to shift from the mode of “travel while sleeping to free up some holiday time” to, “the first day of holiday is the trip itself, enjoy.”
For me, precise answer would depend on how far she has to travel on the front end to get to the airport for the 7am flight. For me, leaving on a 7am flight in the San Francisco Bay Area can be brutal – SFO is 30+ miles from my house but can easily be over an hour if traffic is bad. OAK is 12 minutes door-to-door on back roads that never have traffic issues. So I fly 7am there all the time. The key is when will the wakeup have to be for the 7am flight. If before 5am, don’t do it with kids. Staying up late – especially for kids who are beyond the toddler meltdown stage is easier.
Can I offer up another option? Rather than have your mom pick you up at 1:00am, why don’t you check into an airport hotel when you arrive at your destination; that way, the kids will have a good night’s sleep, your mom doesn’t have to stay awake until that hour of the night, and you might be able to unwind from the flight before you all see your family in the morning.
We’ve taken our three kids (6, 8 and 10) to 37 countries – well over 300k miles in the air. We always choose early flights. Many reasons why: The flights are rarely delayed. Traffic to the airport is lighter. If we wake the kids up at 4am to get into the car, they fall back asleep. We arrive at our destinations at reasonable times. It sucks carrying sleeping kids off of planes at night. I could go on. Our only bad flights with the kids have been afternoon flights. We’ve literally never had an issue with early flights. Makes travel so much easier when there are no problems!