One of the few downsides of working in travel is that you very quickly become numb to quirky industry elements such as self service check-in at the airport, cocktails on arrival at the hotel, etc.
In this case, while members of the industry went about their New Years business, regular folk on social media lost their minds over a Hawaiian Airlines flight that took off in 2018 and landed in 2017.
Yes, the miracle of time zones.
Hawaiian Airlines Flight 446 was originally scheduled to depart Auckland, New Zealand to Honolulu, Hawaii on 31 December at 11.55pm (local time), but was delayed by 10 minutes, meaning it didn’t leave the city until 12.05am on 1 January 2018.
The aircraft then travelled past the international date line to touch down in Honolulu at 10.16am on 31 December 2017, giving flyers a second chance at celebrating the new year.
Because of an unexpected delay, Hawaiian Airlines flight 446 took off in 2018 and will land in 2017. #timetravel pic.twitter.com/A5vesXmjqq
— Sam Sweeney (@SweeneyABC) December 31, 2017
Hawaiian Airlines’ ‘travel back to the future’ was noticed by ABC7 Transportation Reporter, Sam Sweeney, who posted it to twitter (ab0ve).
The tweet attracted thousands of likes and retweets as well as several gifs related to the world’s best time travel franchise, ‘Back to the Future’…
— Tom Molloy (@tmolloy_12) December 31, 2017
— Hawkeye Images (@webcentrick) December 31, 2017
— Joe Cuzz III (@joecuzz78) December 31, 2017
While others saw a little sorcery behind the flight…
https://twitter.com/BStinnett77/status/947516940989485056
And some suggested flying in reverse and skipping New Year’s celebrations all together…
You could fly the other way and skip the New Year's Eve thing completely. https://t.co/SrM2UK17U7
— Ira Goldman 🦆🦆🦆 (@KDbyProxy) December 31, 2017
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