NEW YEAR’S EVE: Flights that go back to the future

If you celebrate New Year’s Eve at the departure airport, board a long flight, and then land on a day that still reads December 31 local time, you’ve just experienced one of commercial aviation’s quirkiest phenomena. Thanks to time zones and the International Date Line, a handful of long-haul flights scheduled around the New Year can literally land on the calendar before you left, even though you actually spent hours airborne.

Notionally, you could celebrate New Year’s Eve twice. It’s just geography… and carefully timed scheduling.

The aviation trick of crossing the International Date Line

The key is flying west to east across the Pacific. When you cross the International Date Line heading eastbound, you subtract a day. Combine that with a late-night departure on December 31 and a flight long enough to cross multiple time zones, and you can arrive earlier on the same calendar date.

Scheduled flight data for the 2025/26 holiday season shows around 14 commercial services scheduled to depart on 1 January 2026 (local date) and arrive on 31 December 2025 (local date). They make ‘time travel possible!

Classic transpacific warped calendar flights

Here are some of the routes and flight numbers that appear on published 2025/26 airline schedules and could, if timed right on New Year’s Eve, land before they departed.

Japan – North America

• NH106 – ANA: Tokyo Haneda (HND) → Los Angeles (LAX)
• CX880 – Cathay Pacific: Hong Kong (HKG) → Los Angeles (LAX)
• CX872 – Cathay Pacific: Hong Kong (HKG) → San Francisco (SFO)
• CX888 – Cathay Pacific: Hong Kong (HKG) → Vancouver (YVR)
• JX012 – Starlux: Taipei (TPE) → San Francisco (SFO)
  (All are scheduled to depart early New Year’s Day and arrive late on December 31 according to AeroRoutes data.)

These confirm that the westbound transpacific trick continues to exist in 2025/26 schedules—not just from the Australian and New Zealand hubs, but also from other major gateways in Asia.

Australia and New Zealand

Some classic Australia–US flights (e.g. Qantas QF11 Sydney → Los Angeles, QF93 Melbourne → Los Angeles, Air New Zealand NZ6 Auckland → Los Angeles) have long been cited in traveller lore as New Year’s Eve time-shift flights.

So even if you don’t hit a published Jan 1 departure, taking a late Dec 31 departure on routes like QF11/SYD–LAX, QF93/MEL–LAX or NZ6/AKL–LAX will still let you land before you left for many travellers, thanks to time-zones and crossing the Date Line.

Samoa’s unique Date Line dance

Schedules also show Samoa Airways flights from Apia Fagali’i (FGI) to Pago Pago (PPG) that depart early on Jan 1 and arrive on Dec 31, illustrating another variant of the Date Line effect on short regional services in the Pacific.

These aren’t long-haul flights, but they’re fascinating because they demonstrate the same calendar reversal at a much smaller scale — and they highlight how the Date Line itself isn’t a straight line but a patchwork that can produce counterintuitive arrival dates even on short hops.

A fun trick, but not without limits

The idea of “twice celebrating New Year” is appealing, but there are practical caveats. Airline schedules shift each year, and the specific published flights that officially flip calendar dates may vary, some flights appear in winter schedules but not others. Long overnight flights are still just flights — delays, air traffic and weather can push you into January 1 regardless of the nominal schedule. Your body clock won’t care about the calendar; jet lag is still real.

2PAXfly Takeout

New Year’s Eve time-warping flights are one of those delightful aviation quirks that take advantage of geography and time-zone maths. If you’re planning a transpacific trip around the turn of the year, check published schedules carefully; you might just land before you left.