Flight Arrival Time Calculator
Enter when you leave, your flight's duration, and both time zones. This tool works out your exact local arrival time — and shows how many hours actually pass on the clock, which is rarely the same as your time in the air.
Runs entirely in your browser using your device's IANA time zone data; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Why "hours in the air" and "hours on the clock" don't match
A flight's duration is a fixed span of real time — a 6-hour flight takes 6 hours no matter where it goes. But the clock reading when you land depends on how many time zones you crossed, not how long you flew. Fly east and the destination clock has already moved further ahead, so it can look like you arrived "later" than 6 hours suggests. Fly west, and the opposite happens: the clock can show you arriving earlier than you left, even though you spent real hours in the air. Neither is a trick — it's the same arithmetic behind any time zone conversion, just applied across a journey instead of a single moment.
Doing it by hand
The reliable method is to route everything through UTC, the same way any time zone conversion works. Take your departure time, convert it to UTC using your origin zone's offset, add the flight duration in hours and minutes, then convert that UTC result into the destination zone's local time using its offset on the arrival date (not the departure date — this matters if a daylight saving change falls between the two). This calculator does exactly that, using your browser's own time zone database so the offsets are always current.
Common flight-duration pitfalls
- Crossing the International Date Line. A long trans-Pacific flight (e.g. Los Angeles to Sydney) can mean landing two calendar days after departure, even though the flight itself is under 15 hours — because the Date Line adds a full day on top of the time zone shift.
- DST changes mid-journey. If your flight departs just before a daylight saving transition and lands just after one (in either zone), the "hours on the clock" figure can jump by an extra hour in either direction compared to a normal day.
- Half-hour and 45-minute zones. Destinations like Mumbai (UTC+5:30) or Kathmandu (UTC+5:45) mean your arrival time can land on the half-hour or quarter-hour, which is easy to mis-round when calculating by hand.
A worked example
Suppose you depart New York at 7:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, and the flight to London takes 7 hours. New York is UTC−5 in winter, so departure in UTC is midnight Wednesday. Add 7 hours: 7:00 a.m. UTC Wednesday. London in winter is UTC+0, so you land at 7:00 a.m. London time — meaning the clock only moved 12 hours forward even though you were in the air for 7, because you crossed five time zones eastward while you flew.
Frequently asked questions
Does this account for daylight saving time?
Yes. It uses your browser's built-in time zone database, which applies whichever offset is actually in effect for the departure and arrival dates you enter — including any DST transition that happens to fall between them.
Why does my arrival date sometimes jump forward by two days?
This happens on long westbound flights that cross the International Date Line, most often on transpacific and trans-Tasman routes. The date line adds a full calendar day independent of the time zone shift, so a 13-hour flight can still show a two-day date change.
Can I use this for a multi-leg trip with a layover?
Calculate each leg separately: use your layover airport's arrival time as the departure time and zone for the next leg, and repeat.
Why is "clock time" different from "flight time"?
Flight time is how long you're actually in the air, unaffected by geography. Clock time is the difference between the two local readings at departure and arrival, which shifts with every time zone you cross — see the explanation above for why they diverge.
Need to double-check a specific time zone conversion instead of a full flight? Use the time zone converter. Comparing two cities' clocks side by side? Try the world clock.