"And with more business travelers turning to the red-eye, airlines have bulked up their overnight schedules to meet demand. The San Francisco Bay area, home of Silicon Valley, launches 28 so-called late-night 'nerd birds' every night: 20 out of San Francisco, seven from San Jose and one from Oakland, an increase of roughly 40 percent from just five years ago."
—Amanda Lang, "Red Eye Flights," CNNfn, February 13, 2001
The original
nerd birds were flights between Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas, the home of Dell Computer Corp. and other high-tech firms. This is reflected in the earliest citation I could find for
nerd bird (see below).
A closely related term is Barbie bird, which refers to a flight between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, which often has a high ratio of "actresses" and "models" who fly to Silicon Valley to work as booth bunnies in technology trade shows.
