New Year’s Eve 2026, how to celebrate twice: flights (half an hour) that make you travel back in time

Of
Leonard Berberi

On 1 January 2026, 7 connections are scheduled (6 of which are very short) with landing on 31 December 2025. Here’s where they are and how much they cost

Thirty minutes of flight to go back – seriously – twenty-four hours back in time and celebrate New Year’s Eve 2026 twice. For lovers of dinners and fireworks there are seven flights that will take off on 1 January 2026 and land the day before, 31 December 2025, between the morning and early afternoon. This is what emerges from the analysis of specialized aeronautical databases.

The most curious trips “back in time” are those to Oceania straddling the International Date Line. Samoa Airways, for example, will operate six flights from Fagali’i (Samoa’s capital) to Pago Pago (American Samoa) on January 1, 2026. The first takes off at 7:30 local time on 1 January 2026 and lands at 8:05 on 31 December 2025. The last frequency departs from Fagali’i at 13:55 on 1 January 2026 and arrives in Pago Pago at 14:30 on 31 December 2025.

Checking availability on the company website (here too a leap back in time, but technological), very few seats remain – at 172.64 dollars each way – only on the 11.45am (1 seat), 12.20pm (2 seats) and 1.55pm (1 seat) flights. This is also due to the limited capacity of the aircraft used: the De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 have in fact only 19 seats.

It goes without saying that after celebrating the second New Year’s Eve to Pago Pago and returning to Fagali’i, the 24 hours “earned” are then “returned” by losing the same number on the return flight, which always lasts about thirty minutes, but which bypasses the Date Change Line. Alternatively, there is the Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to Rarotonga (Cook Islands), departing at 8.50am on 1 January 2026 and arriving at 1.40pm on 31 December 2025.

There are other flights that cross the Date Line backwards, but they depart shortly after midnight and therefore do not leave material time to celebrate 2026 twice. On the contrary, there are 78 flights that will take off on December 31, 2025 — especially in the afternoon and early evening — and will land at their destination as early as January 2, 2026.

This is the case, for example, of Qantas flight QF4 departing at 5.15pm from «JFK» in New York and arriving at 4.55am on January 2nd in Auckland. And who knows, maybe these flights – most of them expensive if booked now – will not be taken by storm by those who, on the contrary, really don’t want to celebrate New Year’s Eve even once. Or he prefers to toast at 10-12 thousand meters above sea level.