Time zone confusion with iCal/Apple Calendar
 

I have been trying to figure out the time zone settings on iCal for a long time and finally decided to post this thread in the hopes that someone has any suggestions:

I am trying to enter a flight from EST time zone where the light departs to Central European Zone where it lands. As such, the flight leaves at 6:00 pm EST and arrives at 2:00 am EST. However, I want it to show the actual time it arrives in that time zone (which is 8:00 am CET). United has added the flight on my iCal showing 6:00 pm departure and 2:00 am arrival.

I have tried changing all the relevant settings: time zone support in Preferences, playing with the time zone settings within the entry. Newhart is the correct setting that should be used to accomplish this? Floating? Or perhaps another combination?

Thank you for any advice.

Same boat here. Just one of those things I've learned to live with.

Either there's something we're missing.

Or there's a glaring hole in Apple's programming.

I suspect it's the former...

Wish I could offer more substantive advice. Here's to hoping someone on this forum can help!

Welcome to Flyertalk, raking.

This topic comes up from time to time. Your iPhone calendar will always show events in your current local time zone by default. You can set an alternate time zone for calendar display in Settings - Mail, Contacts, Calendars - Time Zone Override.

When you think about it, it doesn't make sense to try to show a single event with a start time in one time zone and an end time in another.

Except when flying, where it's imperative that start and end times show in the time zone the plane will be in at each end.

I've learned to live with it knowing that any given event will eventually show the correct time zone when I get there.

+1

Sure it does. Especially for a flight.

I do this all the time in the Lotus (excuse me, IBM) Notes calendar for trips. Each time entry (start and end) can have its own time zone. The original Lotus Notes developers (thanks Ray Ozzie) thought this out quite well as this has always been the case.

Your calendar shows you what's going on in the time zone you're in. If it were to somehow show events starting and ending in different time zones, it would be really confusing. You wouldn't know how long the event was. Besides, when you import a calendar item from an airline, it usually says the local time of arrival and departure for you. But the flight itself doesn't occur in two time zones at once.

Except that your six hour flight to Europe would suddenly show as taking 12 hours if you show its start and end times in different time zones. And it's just a six hour flight. I would find that incredibly confusing.

I suppose it fundamentally results from a different way of thinking about time, with me (and most people :)) in one camp and y'all in another.

Properly designed software would know exactly how long it is. The correct duration of the flight is always displayed correctly in my calendar, despite the multiple timezones for a flight.

I guess I'd have to see it in action, but it seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist for me.

That's the nice thing about sw, it can be flexible for those who want it to perform a specific function, yet non-intrusive for those who don't need it.

Would be nice if it were like Outlook, which can set separate time zones for start and end of an event. I haven't looked to hard, but my android phone doesn't have that feature out of the box either.

The Web version of Google Calendar supports separate time zones for event start and end times. Your Android device will display the times in your current time zone in large type and in the time zone you selected in a small, light font below.

Argh..

Running into this idiotic mess again.

I entered my return flight for the correct date and time, but once I crossed the date line the idiotic calendar shifted the date a day later. I tried the time zone override, but that doesn't fix the problem.

I'm not sure what TripIt is doing, but it addresses this problem. Here's a screenshot from an upcoming trip with unique start / end time zones:

I've been changing all such events to floating, which isn't perfect since it usually requires to edit times manually and I think changing to floating can only be done on the iMac but not on phone or pad. Once done on Mac it does show correctly on phone and pad, though. Haven't figured out any better solution.....