Passengers’ time travel bid to celebrate New Year’s twice foiled by delay

The promise of a time-travelling New Year's Day flight continues to elude these passengers. Photo / Katie Hetland, Unsplash

“You only live once, but you can celebrate New Year’s Eve twice!”

That was the premise of United Airlines’ Guam to Honolulu service, scheduled for January 1.

Every New Year period sparks a hunt by aviation fanatics and plane-spotters to find routes across the international date boundary, resetting the clock to December 31 and rolling back the calendar.

The American carrier tweeted a cheeky UA200 promotion promising that passengers on a seven-hour flight departing on the morning of New Year’s Day would land in Hawaii before 7pm on New Year’s Eve in time to sing Auld Lang Syne again.

It was an idea that captured the imagination, with the tweet racking up almost 300,000 views.

In previous years, this time-travel phenomenon has inspired charter flights and even New Zealand music festivals due to its location at the edge of the 24th time zone.

Sadly, it was not to be.

One would-be time-traveller shared his disappointment in the thread, with an update from the airline saying the flight had been delayed.

Instead of departing Guam at 7.35am as scheduled, it was delayed by over six hours to 2pm. This pushed the new arrival time to well after midnight on the morning of January 1.

“I was supposed to be on this flight. Double New Year isn’t happening anymore,” replied one passenger, with a screenshot of the delay.

“Maybe next year?”

UA200 failed to deliver on its promise of "New Year's Eve twice" after a six-hour delay. Photo / Fight Radar 24

Others chimed in with their dismay, with one saying their party had “planned our entire vacation around it”.

While United’s time-travelling tweet aged poorly, other passengers said they had flown the service before in order to experience special dates twice. One passenger said they were able to celebrate their birthday in Guam before heading home to Hawaii for birthday number two. New Year’s Eve appears to be more tricky to pull off.

In 2021, New Zealand was chosen as the jumping-off point for a “time travelling” music festival named “New Year’s Twice”, charging revellers $6500 a ticket to double-dip on NYE, with parties lined up in Auckland and Hawaii.

However, the festival was canned when the chartered flight could not get around Covid travel restrictions. Organiser Anton Rimbau told the Herald it was the “responsible thing” to postpone the event and refund ticket holders.

This year, some passengers on more punctual flights had better luck. Cathay Pacific flight CX872, which departed Hong Kong at 1am on January 1, arrived in San Francisco at 8.22 pm on December 31, and Ana flight 106, which departed at 12.48am on January 1 and landed in LAX at 5.12 pm on New Year’s Eve. Closer to home, Air New Zealand’s biweekly NZ936 service from Auckland to Niue also crosses the date line, but rarely operates on Christmas and New Year’s. However, the short and regular Guam to Honolulu flight has made it the preferred time-travelling service for those hoping to experience the countdown again - and twice as many Hogmanays.