Taylor Swift’s Race Against Time: The Two Unique Strategies That Made Her Tokyo-To-Super Bowl Flight Possible

Taylor Swift’s plane from Tokyo Haneda airport is enroute to Los Angeles (not to Las Vegas). It is currently the most-tracked jet.

VistaJet’s flight VJT993, a Bombardier Global Express,, is operating as “The Football Era.” It is currently estimated in over an hour early, at 3:07 p.m. Pacific time.

Reportedly charter provider VistaJet made two unique preparations, besides having the plane ready for Ms. Swift’s swift departure following her Tokyo show:

  • A team of mechanics on the ground in Tokyo

  • A second jet on standby. Would you want to be the charter company that kept Taylor Swift from making the Super Bowl?

Her plane is waiting for her at LAX. She’s probably picking someone up. (And the jet she’s on, which is foreign-registered, cannot fly a passenger just between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.)

Taylor Swift performed in Tokyo Saturday night, and is arriving back in the U.S. before her show ended. Call it time travel, or the International Date Line. And she had written assurances from the government of Japan.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. So sick of this attention seeking diva. The NFL is glad for the ratings bump, but Taylor and her songs that all sound the same need to fade away.

  2. Keeping mechanics and a spare aircraft on standby are not unique preparations. But I guess that had to be added to give this Taylor Swift clickbait something aeronautical to get posted here.

  3. Before Taylor Swift’s race to the Super Bowl was Air Traffic Control clearing airspace for Paul McCartney to join Billy Joel’s Shea Stadium Farewell in 2008. London to NYC, then JFK to Shea Stadium in 11 minutes. McCartney back full circle at Shea. Magical. Check it out on YouTube

  4. The route was longer than a great circle route but seemed to take advantage of a strong jet stream tailwind per FlightAware data.

  5. You are all just jealous. She has enough real cash to hire you all as her dog walkers if you are qualified.

  6. Read about Vista Jet. Look where that jet VSJ993 had been the last week Beijing for one‍♂️

  7. Go Taylors future husband. The sports guys say Travis gets 30 more yards per game when Taylor is at a Chiefs game. Go KC Chiefs!

  8. I don’t understand the criticism of her but I also don’t get why this was a “race against time”? It’s a 12 hour flight and she had 33 hours to fit it in. Not exactly difficult! Only wrinkle was the lack of space in Vegas, which she obviously solved by landing at LAX.

  9. What?

    I thought she was barely going to make it, I’m reading this four hours from the game and she has been back since yesterday?

    This isn’t even close to dramatic or interesting, I had visions of her running through an airport to catch a car to the stadium, lol

  10. @Rey L – Also, Phil Collins’ flight on Concorde to play both Live Aid concerts in London and NYC

  11. Taylor is maybe the UPMOST of pathetic humans. The whole of America is worried about if they can get a 34-yr-old women to a priviliged box at a superbowl stadium, in time.

    Because she’s such an absurd influence on all of your tween daughters.

    Aren’t you able to steer your daughters toward other more-subtantial influences? Have you tried attending church and looking toward God? Or what about the founders of charitable donations?

  12. @Lindy – America is entranced by the love story of a woman crossing the world to support her BF. Why not have some happy in the world. As to the “more substantive” influences – ask the thousands of child sex abuse victims of the Catholic Church how that plan worked out for them.

  13. @Johnny Ayup.. Carbon footprints don’t apply to the rich and/or famous… regardless of political views. Well, not so much “don’t apply” as they “don’t exist” to them.

  14. lol @ gary. You really think they “kept a team of mechanics on standby” is as big as it sounds? You know what they ACTUALLY did. They called their contracted team of Mech’s in Asia for VJT, who assigned a crew to be available for the time being needed. They looked at the various fluid levels. checked to make sure nothing obvious was out of place and asked the crew “any write ups?”. “No? ok bye!” I would hardly call it as large a production as you suggest it is. You make it seem like it was a literal team of top shelf mechanics who jumped in at a moments notice like some NASCAR pitstop.

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