Joe18

I don't sleep on flights to Europe but when I went to China two years ago I drank two glasses of wine, took a 5mg Ambien, and slept 5-6 hrs. Not for everyone, of course.

Liam

I can get maybe an hour's sleep if I'm lucky when flying to Europe or on the red eye back to the east cost fron California.

On my recent flight from Boston to Ireland, at 7 pm EST, the guy across the aisle from me was asleep before the plane pulled away from the gate!

dncdave

I fly from LA to Europe, which is 11 or 12 depending on initial destination. I get a few hours of lousy sleep. We usually leave about 6 or 7 p.m., LA time, and get there early afternoon.

My big temptation is to not take a nap when we get there, or a very short one, walk around for the rest of the day, and be ready to pass out for the first full night.

I am in the growing group of people who are disappointed that science has not gotten to the Star Trek level where I can beam up from LA to London. Why they are working on any other things in science is a mystery to me.

dutyfree

No,no one ever sleeps in economy on overnight international flights-they all come back to the galley and chat with me. I have always had the most interesting discussions though-marriages,politics,travel plans,jobs,children,etc. I can hardly wait to meet my "new friends" tomorrow night on the way to Rome..........

adeben

I quite regularly fly from Melbourne, Australia to Frankfurt, Germany via Singapore. In Economy Class, few people sleep during the 8 hour flight to Singapore: however, after a 3 hour stopover at Singapore, nearly EVERYONE sleeps during the subsequent 12 hour flight to Frankfurt!

Sarvowinner

Adeben

I so agree. I generally manage to get about 6 hours on the Singapore - Europe leg, none on the SYD - SINGAPORE leg but since that is mainly during the day, it isn't surprising.

Last year, my husband (who can sleep during rock concerts) was so into the movies being offered on QAN VOD that he watched 7 over the whole trip and hardly slept a wink. He was stuffed....

It's the SINGAPORE - SYDNEY leg that is the bugger. It leaves in the evening and by the time they do meal service you only get have a window of 3 hours to sleep etc.

I do quite a bit of work in Singapore and my former boss insisted we come into work after getting off the plane at 7.00am. We flew Economy as it was a small company. He said he had no problem coming in after a flight from the UK

Sarvowinner

oops misclicked there
but he always got upgraded and he could get a decent sleep on the London Singapore leg. On the other hand we would work all day get three hours sleep and rock on into work the next day. Not pretty. Now I'm self employed, I am a lot more lenient with myself
He would also make us fly up on the Sunday and fly back on the Wednesday night.

Susan7

I sympathise with both of you having flown Sydney-Singapore-London and Sydney-Bangkok-London more times than I care to remember and always in sleepless in cattle class.

When I win the lottery I'm going to cut the trip in half and have an overnight in one of the two cities. Although a colleague mentioned JAL sometimes has flights with a free overnight in Tokyo, must investigate.

salitta

I hardly ever can sleep in the beginning of the trip, no matter how little sleep I've had. So, my advice is to forget the advice of getting as little sleep as possible before hand, because if you don't sleep the entire flight and have to get going as soon as you get to where you're going, you're going to feel like crap!

I flew to Japan and had a little Japanese girl behind me that never stopped kicking my seat or making noise, and I mean, even during the time that everyone was sleeping. I had one hour of sleep that night and was ready to absolutely kill this cute little girl. You know how that goes.

Now, I don't know if it's because I'm getting a little older or what, however, I am truly exhausted by trips' ends and actually sleep the entire local flight home after laying over way too long in the local lay-over city, which is often delayed, as it is often, in Chicago's O'Hare airport, known for it's delays. Could also be because it's usually later in the day, but still something to look at.

The other issue is, should one get an aisle seat if they really want to sleep? And why, oh why, do they still allow them to have five seats in the middle? You still need to get up even though the airlines wish that we don't and make it difficult to.

The final point, is relax, act like you're sleeping even if you're not. Close your eyes and let your body relax. Eat the meals they give you, drink juice and water whenever you can. I even think it's good to drink wine or whatever it takes to get you relaxed. Whether or not that's good for you, that's up to you. I find that reading and doing the sudoku also help to get me sleepy. Whatever.... and just don't plan to much for your first day where ever you're going, if you are the one in charge of your itinerary. Otherwise, go with the flow. It will work out fine.