While they are no longer consistently cheaper than any other departure time, red-eye flights typically travel east, allowing business travellers to travel overnight, arrive in an earlier timezone in the morning and not lose a full day of business activity.

BBC: Five tips for getting rest on a red-eye

"I don't miss the red-eye flights or putting on pantyhose or the stress of not being within driving distance of my 20-month-old son, "says Ren Shimada Siegel, a former Novell marketing manager who now runs a placement agency from her home.

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With airlines cleaving away from the hub-and-spoke system -- which once rigidly controlled arrival and departure times -- in favor of more or less continuous schedules and red-eye flights, the hotel industry needs to restructure its own arrival and departure policies to reflect modern traffic flow.

CNN: 10 ways to improve the travel industry right now