New Years Eve time travelling: These flights take off in 2026 and land in 2025

If you’re celebrating New Year’s Eve with a boarding pass in hand, here’s a travel flex almost nobody gets to claim: taking off in 2026 and landing in 2025.

This night is the aviation equivalent of a solar eclipse—rare, precisely timed, and something you can boast about having experienced—flying major widebodies, on prime long-haul routes, with a calendar that flips in your favour.

This time travel trick happens when long-haul schedules collide with time zones and the International Date Line. You don’t need a Tardis to accomplish this feat, but a good flight schedule helps.

Based on published OAG schedules as of December 21, 2025, AeroRoutes identified 14 passenger flights scheduled to “travel back in time,” meaning they depart on January 1, 2026 and arrive on December 31, 2025.

How can a flight land “before” it takes off?

Aviation operates on local time, which aligns with the calendar. On routes crossing the Pacific (especially westbound-to-eastbound or near the International Date Line), travellers can leave just after midnight on January 1 and arrive on the other side of the ocean while it’s still the evening of December 31.

The International Date Line is an invisible boundary—roughly following the 180th meridian across the Pacific—where the calendar flips by a full day. Fly east across it, and you can arrive on the “previous” date, even though the flight time is perfectly normal. That means “travelling back in time” on the calendar is possible on any day of the year, given the right routes. But New Year’s Eve is the one night when that calendar flip can also turn into a year flip—departing in the new year and landing in the old.

To passengers, crossing the date line can feel like you stole an extra day, and on New Year’s Eve, it’s an opportunity to celebrate twice. For airlines, it’s routine scheduling that still makes for great New Year’s bragging rights as a “time travel” carrier. (Hat tip to Cathay Pacific for operating three of these flights!)

The biggest time travel flights are across the Pacific

This year’s confirmed list is dominated by Trans-Pacific routes, particularly flights departing Asia just after midnight on January 1 and arriving in North America on December 31.

Among the headline-grabbers:

• ANA operating Tokyo Haneda–Los Angeles (NH106)
• Cathay Pacific operates Hong Kong–Los Angeles (CX880), Hong Kong–San Francisco (CX872) and Hong Kong–Vancouver (CX888)
• Starlux Airlines operating Taipei–San Francisco (JX012)
• Hainan Airlines is operating Shenzhen–Vancouver (HU7959)
• United operating Guam–Honolulu (UA200)
• Air New Zealand is operating Auckland–Rarotonga (NZ946)

The full list of flights that let you go back a year on a single night

Note: AeroRoutes also lists “reverse” Samoa Airways flights departing Pago Pago (PPG) on 31DEC25 and arriving Apia Fagali’i (FGI) on 01JAN26: OL223, OL219, OL225, OL227, OL229, OL2249.

Samoa celebrates New Year’s Eve… twice

The most delightful time-zone chaos happens on the short hop between Samoa and American Samoa, which sit on opposite sides of the International Date Line.

AeroRoutes lists multiple Samoa Airways flights from Apia Fagali’i (FGI) to Pago Pago (PPG) scheduled on January 1 that land on December 31—plus the reverse pattern, with flights leaving Pago Pago on December 31 and arriving in Apia on January 1. 

How to read this: The Samoa (FGI) ↔ American Samoa (PPG) hop crosses the International Date Line. On New Year’s, that lets you “year-hop” — and with multiple frequencies in each direction, you can potentially cross between 2025 and 2026 more than once in a single day.

This quick route gives you ample opportunity to party. You can celebrate New Year’s Eve, take a short (75-mile) thirty-minute flight on a DHC-6 Twin Otter over the Pacific, and still have New Year’s Eve waiting for you. Or, you can conceivably time-travel back and forth between the years more than once, if that tickles your fancy. 

The “maybe” list: New Year’s Eve flights that could also flip the date

AeroRoutes also flagged a second category: flights scheduled late on December 31 that might operate as January 1 departures, while still arriving on December 31—depending on how the day’s operations proceed.

These include a mix of short-haul hops (where minutes matter) and longer trans-Pacific services that sit right on the calendar edge.

It’s not guaranteed “time travel,” but it’s possible if delays push departure past midnight while arrival remains in the previous day’s local time. Even if they run as scheduled, these flights allow you to ring in the new year on the plane and then celebrate again after landing.  

Full list of “maybe” time travel flights

And then there are the flights that skip straight to January 2

The other end of the New Year’s scheduling spectrum is equally dramatic: long-haul services departing on December 31 and arriving on January 2. On the longest routes, you can celebrate New Year’s Day while you’re still over the ocean.

AeroRoutes listed a set of flights in that category, noting that some could slip to a January 1 departure due to delays. Still, these New Year’s flights are definitely champagne-worthy.

Full list of flights where you spend New Year’s Day in the air

There are also 92 flights scheduled to depart on New Year’s Eve this year, which arrive somewhere between six in the evening and just before midnight on January 1, 2026. If any of these flights are delayed, travellers might also miss New Year’s Day flying and land on January 2nd instead.

Why time travel matters to airline operations—not just as a New Year’s novelty

For passengers, flying a time-travel flight is a great story to share with friends. For airline operations teams, it’s a serious scheduling challenge.

Date-boundary flights sit at the intersection of crew duty time planning, aircraft rotations, maintenance windows, passenger connections, and airport staffing. A “simple” delay can ripple into next-day schedules—especially when flights are scheduled near midnight.

So yes: time travel is fun. But it’s also a reminder that aviation must keep the world’s clocks and connections aligned, even when they don’t quite follow the calendar.

While most of us welcome 2026 the usual way—countdown, toast, maybe a nice cheese plate and grapes—a handful of lucky travellers will ring in 2026 at 35,000 feet, landing in 2025. Which, when you think about it, is not bad for a New Year’s party trick.

May 2026 bring you many memorable and timely flights!

Featured Image: Sergey Novikov | stock.adobe.com

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