**Have You Ever Thought About Ringing in the New Year Twice?**
Have you ever thought about ringing in the New Year twice? Well, maybe you haven’t. To be truthful, I haven’t either, as I tend to drift off before 8PM on New Year’s Eve, just like I do every night. However, if there’s one thing that could spark my interest, it would be a travel twist…
With that in mind, I thought it would be entertaining to explore the flights that allow you to celebrate New Year’s Eve (or a birthday, or another special event) two times.
### The Delights of Travel, Time Zones, and Prolonged Days
Airplanes truly shrink the world, as today you can journey to the opposite side of the planet with a single flight, in less than a day. As anyone who has taken a long-haul flight can attest, adjusting to jetlag can be challenging, particularly concerning timezone shifts.
The more east or west you go, the more timezone differences you’ll encounter. Besides the usual timezone adjustments that occur one hour (or occasionally 30 minutes) at a time, there’s also the International Date Line, which can influence what day it is. This line runs over the Pacific Ocean and is not a straight path but rather designed in quite an intriguing manner.
Therefore, crossing the Atlantic and crossing the Pacific vary significantly regarding time changes, especially when considering the days:
– A westbound flight across the Pacific will frequently land one or two calendar days later than it took off, as the International Date Line advances you a day forward.
– An eastbound flight across the Pacific will often arrive before it even leaves, since the International Date Line takes you back a day.
When I was younger and enthusiastic about birthdays, I always imagined it would be neat to try to create the longest birthday possible by flying westward for as long as you can. Achieving a ~40 hour birthday is incredibly straightforward by simply flying from Asia to the United States.
Nonetheless, the most intriguing flights concerning time shifts are those that arrive a day before their departure.
### The Most Fascinating Flights to Travel Back in Time by One Day
While numerous flights arrive before their departure (considering local time), there are fewer flights that land the calendar day prior to their departure.
The one route that most significantly travels back in time is between Samoa and American Samoa. The airports of these islands are merely 93 miles apart, and the time at both is identical… except they fall on different days, as the locations are divided by the International Date Line.
Thus, when it’s 12PM on January 1 in Samoa, it’s 12PM on December 31 in American Samoa. Samoa Airways provides flights between these two airports, typically taking about 45 minutes. This means you could depart from Apia, Samoa (APW) at 1PM on January 1 and arrive in Pago Pago, American Samoa (PPG) at 1:45PM on December 31.
That’s certainly an extreme illustration, but let’s examine some other noteworthy flights. Here they are, listed based on how far back in time they travel to the preceding calendar day:
– Fiji Airways’ flight FJ822 from Kiritimati (CXI) to Honolulu (HNL) takes off at 7:30AM and touches down at 10:40AM (-1 day); the hitch is that this fifth freedom flight operates only once a week.
– Air New Zealand’s flight NZ946 from Auckland (AKL) to Rarotonga (RAR) departs at 8:50AM and arrives at 1:40PM (-1 day).
– United Airlines’ flight UA200 from Guam (GUM) to Honolulu (HNL) leaves at 7:40AM and lands at 6:55PM (-1 day).
– All Nippon Airways’ flight NH106 from Tokyo (HND) to Los Angeles (LAX) takes off at 12:50AM and reaches its destination at 5:50PM (-1 day).
– Starlux Airlines’ flight JX2 from Taipei (TPE) to San Francisco (SFO) departs at 12:05AM and arrives at 7:00PM (-1 day).
– Cathay Pacific’s flight CX888 from Hong Kong (HKG) to Vancouver (YVR) takes off at 1:00AM and arrives at 8:35PM (-1 day).
– Cathay Pacific’s flight CX872 from Hong Kong (HKG) to San Francisco (SFO) departs at 1:00AM and arrives at 9:00PM (-1 day).
– Cathay Pacific’s flight CX800 from Hong Kong (