Arrive before you leave
 

What scheduled flights arrive at a time before they depart (via the magic of time change.)

I can think of some like SBN-ORD that do it by flying a short distance across a time zone boundary.

Then there are plenty of Eastbound flights that cross the international dateline.

Are there any westbound flights that cross multiple time zones to arrive 'before' departure?

When I flew from Seoul many moons ago I landed before I departed.

Some of the flights from Auckland and Sydney land the day before they depart. TN's SYD-PPT and AKL-PPT services and NZ's AKL-APW (DJ's SYD-APW leaves late enough from SYD to arrive at 1:20 a.m. the same day into APW) flights come to mind, but there are others to Pacific islands. The former AC SYD-HNL flight also landed the day before it departed.

-m

I've done Hong Kong/LA and Beijing/LA a number of times where we've arrived before we left.

I think the OP is looking for WESTBOUND flights that land before taking off.

I cannot think of any-only eastbound.

The westbound flights you ask about would have to be far enough north or south on the earth so that timezones are less than a jet can fly in an hour (and the the jetstream would likely make it worse!). I tried Greenland and in an admittedly inexhaustive effort, couldn't find anything. Anyone else got any other ideas?

No, but I saw Ann Curry on the Today Show run around the South Pole earlier this year. All 24 zones in about 5 seconds, so I get the idea.

Maybe not what you had in mind, but I've done DTW-ORD and arrived a few minutes before departure. :)

I found one. Its a short flight across one time zone, so it doesn't involve several zones.

phx-las during standard time. SWA puts it as 1 hour gate to gate (but no elapsed time), so you must land before take off.

I tend to drive it instead of fly it, but flights from Atlanta to Birmingham arrives in under an hour, with a time zone change in there.

Taipei SFO 14 hrs on the plane and you get there before you left

Also AKL-PPT works fine !!

AY 641
1 August
HEL 13:30
ARN 13:25



SK 733
1 August
LED 17:20
ARN 16:45


TP 765
1 August
SVQ 13:00
LIS 12:55

Plenty of flights, that go back one timezone usually (non peak hours anyway) involve landing before you took off. AMS/BRU/CDG-LHR for example. Of course, by gate to gate airline timetable they're not.

Per the OP's request of westbound covering multiple timezones, I can't think of any current flights. Besides Concorde, all I can think of, historically, was back in the 80's when Europe to Japan used to involve routing via ANC and I seem to remember some of those arrived there for refuelling before takeoff time with the -9/-10 hours time difference.

On the other side of the Atlantic....
 

UA 7217
1 August
SBN 5:35
ORD 5:20


LA 931
1 December
MDZ 13:00
SCL 12:55

:confused: LAS (Las Vegas, Nevada) and LAX (Los Angeles, California) are both in the same time zone--Pacific.

I once flew NAN-HNL only to find out on arrival that my hotelroom reservation was for the next day. I had left on saturdaynight and arrived on saturday morning...

China Southern flight from Urumqi to Almaty, Kazakhstan leaves at 18:40 and arrives at 18:20, with a flight time of 1:40, so this spans two timezones. Do I get a prize? ;)

Chris

Also, Aeroflot-Nord offers a flight from Murmansk, Russia to Tromso, Norway that takes two hours and arrives at the same time as it departs. :D

Chris

Man, I'm on a roll now. Wideroe Airlines flies from Murmansk, Russia to Kirkenes, Norway, departing at 16:35 and arriving at 15:20, for a 45 minute flight, changing two time zones.

Chris

Saved the best for last. China Southern flies from Vladivostok, Russia to Harbin, China in 1 hour, surpassing 3 time zones.

Depart: 20:30
Arrive: 18:30

And I retire.:D

Chris

I was up too late. I meant PHX-LAS.

Another one, LXA (Lhasa) - KTM (Kathmandu) depart 11:00, arrives 10:00 travelling from GMT+8 to GMT+5:45 with a flight time of 1:15.

UA 7217 leaves South Bend (SBN) at 5:35A, arrives in ORD at 5:20.

Along those lines, I recall reading about the FA who was trying to explain to a naive passenger how it was possible to arrive before you leave. The FA patiently explained about time zones and the rotation of the earth, however the passenger just wasn't getting it. Finally, the FA said, "we go really fast!" The passenger said, "oh," and returned to combing through the Skymall catalogue for "must haves." :)

Must have been my father. I've had more grazes on my forehead......... from banging it on walls, than I can remember ! :D

CX836 HKG-YVR. Departs HKG around midnight and then arrives YVR the evening on the day before departure.

Pretty much any flight from the western pacific and Asia to HNL does this.

ICN-ORD comes close -- depending on time of year, the flight only takes about 40 minutes!:D

I did the SIN-LAX on stop on SQ in 2006.. departed a bit late like 5:00PM and arrived early at 3:45 the same day

Also I think we had a serious tail wind too..

also remember pretty strong turbulance over Japan- to the point it woke me up and being from CA i thought it was an earthquake ..woke up all confused and searching for my desk to get under then realized where I was.. and went back to sleep and enjoyed the movement

I've had that happen every time I fly from China to the US (west coast.)

A westbound flight couldn't do it unless it was pretty close to a pole.

Yeah, I've had that happen once. 45 minute jump that crossed a time zone.


It occurs to me one other place you probably could do it. Fly out of western China to someplace nearby. China is all on one time zone, any short hop from a city on the western edge is going to pick up several hours.

I tried to explain it to somebody at United's website some time ago and they couldn't get it!

I was trying to use the multi-city routing tool on a flight whose first leg was a transpac. The engine would not allow me to specify a departure time for the second flight earlier than the first flight. I was pointing this out as a flaw in the system and they couldn't understand that anything was wrong.

How about arriving the same time you leave? WN 3316 leaves LBB (Lubbock, TX) at 9:20 a.m. and arrives in ELP (El Paso, TX) at 9:20 a.m.

I was once told by a GA in ORD that I was among the last to check in for a flight to HPN, so I'd be given lower priority (weather cancellation). I had checked in at 5pm or so, this happened around 5pm. I had to explain to her that I had checked in ~12 hours before in NGO.

This reminds me of a flight that I took from PHX-ELP last October on US. The departure was set for 9:45pm but due to mx we were delayed to 11:00pm. Even though the flight is scheduled for 1h20m, the pilot apparently pushed the 737-400 so hard that we really hauled [rear end] to ELP in a scant 45 minutes (that's from takeoff in PHX to wheels down in ELP).

The new SYD-EZE service which starts this November has a very unusual departure /arrival time;

Qantas Airways

Flights 17 Departs: 10:35 Kingsford Smith (SYD)
Arrives: 10:35 Ministro Pistarini (EZE)

I once flew four flights, all of which took off on a Tuesday.

One took off and landed in the morning on Tuesday.
The other three took off at night. Of those, one landed on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday.

Last year I flew SYD-HNL-YVR and landed in YVR at the exact same time and day (to the minute) as we left SYD.