New York from Manchester

[MiaowMiaow99]

Anyone done it? Any advice on best flight times? E.g. a 9pm flight gets you there for 1pm but the jet lag is awful / better to fly early doors and arrive at bedtime and follow their local time?
Probably only going to go for 4 / 5 nights so want to make sure the fights are best possible combo.

I've done various UK airports to various destinations in USA including NYC over the years.

I think for many people, definitely including me, it's a lot easier on the body/head to try to arrive early evening. Adopt the local time - so if your normal bedtime here is midnight then stick to that time in NYC.

I also find it's better not to sleep on the plane although a few cat naps are okay. Personally, I have always found it easier to adjust (both ways) if a lot of the flight durations are in daylight.

I am actually in early stages of researching my next trip to NYC for Spring 2022 and meeting up with a friend who lives in New Hampshire.

It's a great, vibrant and exciting city and I am looking forward to it. I hope you have a brilliant time.

We have done it twice with Aer Lingus from Manchester and have always taken the early flight going and the latest flight coming back, although I can see the appeal in taking an early flight back too. Aer Lingus means you clear customs and immigration in Dublin so are straight off the plane and out once you land. If prices were comparable I'd happily go with someone else though, I don't know how much of a time saving it really is clearing customs in Dublin or not, plus there's no gain coming back and having to stop over.

We flew from Manchester to JFK. Went with Virgin, who have a partnership with Delta. Our plane/crew were Delta who we hadn’t used before but they were great. Never had so much complimentary food and drink! Can’t remember our exact flight times but we left Manc in the morning, maybe around 10am. By the time we cleared immigration, made our way to Manhattan, it was teatime so quick shower before drinks and a meal. Perfect timing to be honest. We stayed 4 or 5 nights too which was just right for a first visit. Got an evening flight home so travelled overnight. Bit tiring but so worth it! We walked for miles in NYC and had some late nights so the first few days back at work were knackering but it is such an amazing city

I’ve been twice from Manchester. The first flight was early going there and then early evening coming back. The second was in the afternoon we left here and it was an overnight flight back. I preferred that one as it was quiet and I could sleep. We landed back at roughly 7am .

We flew out of Heathrow at 11am, landed at JFK around 2.30pm, but as several international flights came in together, we took nearly 3 hours to go through immigration, and had a shared minibus transfer so we arrived at our hotel around 8pm. We'd left home at 4am that morning, so I was completely beyond it by this stage and had a major hissy when DH started quibbling about the room service charges!! If we go again, we'll get the latest flight we can from the UK.

We left JFK at around 9pm, and landed at dawn at Heathrow - due to the time difference, it was fine and we slept surprisingly well as we'd cram packed our last day.