The res system was the original hold up for red eyes. They could do it now if they wanted. The last time our Dear Leader spoke about them he was elusive but said it doesn’t make sense in our operation right now.
The AM/PM schedule is pretty much a thing of the past. Our flying day is so long (flights scheduled to block in after 1:30 am and take off at 5) that you need like 2.5 crews to fly that schedule. We have a lot of mid day starts and plane swaps as a result.
As far as what the future holds, who knows? I suspect red eyes will eventually be a thing in limited numbers. The thing is, when you have 750 of the same type of airplane, the need to reposition aircraft during low pax density/revenue hours really isn’t that great.
As it is now, there is a huge 10-11pm push out of the mega stations to get airplanes out to the outlying cities to bed the planes down for the night.