This flight left Hong Kong in 2025 and landed in LA in 2024—The funny story that’s breaking the internet

Cathay Pacific Flight 880 allowed passengers to relive the same day. The flight departed from Hong Kong right after the arrival of the New Year of 2025. But by the time the plane touched down in Los Angeles, it was December 31, 2024, at 8:30 PM local time.

The passengers truly were back in time with two New Year's Eve celebrations in one journey.

It is, of course, not a science fiction plot twist or a glitch in the reality. All boils down to the International Date Line (IDL), an invisible but very real stretch through the Pacific Ocean. The IDL separates the world's time zones, where the official beginning and ending of the calendar day occurs.

When a flight passes over the IDL going west, passengers gain a day. Going eastward, they lose one. When Flight 880 flew from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, they crossed the IDL, and this flipped the calendar for everyone aboard.

It isn't magic – it's pure geography.

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Double the parties, double the fun.

Flight 880 welcomed the New Year aboard from Hong Kong. Fireworks went off; parades marched and played their tunes; and soon, the large city skyline was painted with that warm holiday feel as people left the old year behind and entered anew.

Three hours later, Flight 880 touched ground in Los Angeles, where celebrators had yet to be counted down to midnight.

This meant they saw two distinct New Year's Eve in two different cities.

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So, what's the International Date Line All about?

For the record, the International Date Line is the central player in how time works in this vast world. It runs from the North Pole to the South Pole in the Pacific Ocean such that one is sure all time zones are well aligned.

If one crosses this line, it does not just change the hour but flips the calendar day.

Westbound, you lose a day across the IDL; eastbound, you gain one. A matter of how you are running time.

Flight 880, heading west from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, acquired an entire day.

This is not just neat trivia for geeks; it is an in-the-world realization of how time zones and the IDL regulate the experience of time, especially on trans-Pacifc flights.

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Global New Year's Eve tour

While the passengers of Flight 880 were enjoying their second New Year's Eve, the rest of the world ushered in 2025, at its own pace.

At 5 AM EST on January 1, the smallest island of the Republic of Kiribati, Kiritimati, ushered in the New Year 2025 first. They had already started partying while most of the world was still thinking about New Year's Eve.

The Chatham Islands in New Zealand followed suit after 15 minutes and marked their official start into the New Year at 5:15 AM EST.

Well before 6 A.M. EST, New Zealand's two big cities lit up the night sky into a kaleidoscope spree of countdown and fireworks, respectively, in Auckland and Wellington.

However, the last regions on the planet to bid farewell to 2024 were the two nearly barren, US-controlled islands of Baker and Howland – geographically located at UTC-12.

Their New Year’s celebration didn’t arrive until 12:30 PM EST on January 1, almost a whole day after the citizens of Kiritimati had celebrated.