Have you ever wanted to celebrate New Year’s Eve twice? Okay, maybe you haven’t. To be honest, I haven’t either, since I’m asleep before 8PM on New Year’s Eve, just as I am every day. However, if there’s one...
Have you ever wanted to celebrate New Year’s Eve twice? Okay, maybe you haven’t. To be honest, I haven’t either, since I’m asleep before 8PM on New Year’s Eve, just as I am every day. However, if there’s one thing that would get me in the spirit, it would be an aviation angle…
Along those lines, I figured it would be fun to look at the flights that let you celebrate New Year’s Eve (or a birthday, or other special occasion) twice.
The joys of travel & time zones
Airplanes really make the world a pretty small place, as nowadays you can travel to the other side of the globe with a single flight, in less than a day. As anyone who has traveled long haul knows, jetlag can be tough to deal with, and this relates to timezone changes.
The further east or west you travel, the more timezone changes you’ll experience. And in addition to the general timezone changes that happen one hour (or sometimes 30 minutes) at a time, you also have the International Date Line, which can impact the day that it is. The International Date Line is located over the Pacific Ocean, and it’s not a straight line, but is instead mapped out in quite the interesting way.
The International Date Line
So traveling across the Atlantic and traveling across the Pacific are very different in terms of the time change, at least when you factor in the days:
A westbound flight across the Pacific will often land one or two calendar days after it takes off, since the International Date Line pushes you forward a day An eastbound flight across the Pacific will often land before it even departs, since the International Date Line pushes you back a dayWhen I was younger and cared about birthdays, I always thought it would be fun to try to create the longest birthday ever by continuing to fly westbound for as long as one can. Getting a ~40 hour birthday is super easy, by just flying from Asia to the United States.
However, arguably the most interesting flights in terms of time changes are those that land a day before they take off.
Long haul travel involves lots of time changes
The coolest flights to go back in time
United Airlines took to Twitter/X yesterday to promote how “you only live once, but you can celebrate New Year’s Eve twice.” Specifically, the airline promoted its flight from Guam to Honolulu, which takes off at 7:35AM on January 1, and lands at 6:50PM on December 31.
That’s right, you can go back a calendar day, and can even go back to the previous calendar year. This flight is so perfect for this because it’s a short transpacific flight that crosses the International Date Line, essentially pushing back time nearly 24 hours.
Admittedly this is far from the only transpacific flight that lands the previous calendar year, as there are several flights to the US mainland that offer this, including the following:
NH106 Tokyo (HND) to Los Angeles (LAX) departing 12:50AM arriving 5:50PM (-1 day) CX888 Hong Kong (HKG) to Vancouver (YVR) departing 1:00AM arriving 8:30PM (-1 day) CX872 Hong Kong (HKG) to San Francisco (SFO) departing 12:55AM arriving 9:00PM (-1 day) CX800 Hong Kong (HKG) to Los Angeles (LAX) departing 12:15AM arriving 8:55PM (-1 day)Now, none of these flights are as cool as United’s Guam to Honolulu flight. That’s because with the above flights, you’ll basically be boarding (or preparing to board) when the clock strikes midnight, so it’s not like you can actually have two New Year’s celebrations.
While this flight doesn’t operate on New Year’s Eve, I think the flight that most goes back in time is Fiji Airways’ fifth freedom flight from Kiritimati to Honolulu:
FJ822 Kiritimati (CXI) to Honolulu (HNL) departing 7:30AM arriving 10:40AM (-1 day)It’s kind of interesting to see that on a map, because it’s basically a north/south route. However, due to the way the International Date Line is structured, the places are on opposite sides of the line.
Fiji Airways’ cool Kiritimati to Honolulu route
The catch — and it’s a major catch — is that the short three hour flight only operates up to twice per month, so you’re very limited in terms of the days where you can take this. I still really want to take that flight some time, because it’s so cool.
I’m curious — is there a flight I’m missing that goes back in time more than Fiji Airways’ unique Honolulu fifth freedom flight?
Fiji Airways has a cool flight to Honolulu
Bottom line
Long haul travel can involve quite some time zone changes. On top of that, the International Date Line can mean that you can take a long haul flight and arrive before you depart. If you want to celebrate New Year’s Eve or your birthday twice, there are some flights you can take where you quite literally go back in time to the previous calendar year.
Has anyone ever celebrated a special occasion with some time zone fun?