Time Travel Flights: How Taylor Swift Will Perform In Tokyo And Still Make The Super Bowl

by Gary Leff

Taylor Swift plans to “time travel” by leaving Tokyo after her performance and arriving in Las Vegas in time for the Super Bowl, demonstrating the unique capabilities of international travel across the date line.

This is something that happens all the time, but it’s much easier when you’re chartering a plane and picking the flight times. For instance, there were five scheduled commercial flights on New Year’s Day that landed on New Year’s Eve, traveling “back in time” before they departed. That’s because of the international date line. One – United’s morning Guam to Honolulu flight – was perfectly timed to celebrate New Year’s twice.

United’s flight was scheduled to depart Guam at 7:35 a.m. on New Year’s morning, an early morning after your revelry, and arrive in Honolulu the night before at 6:50 p.m. – in time to do it all again. And best of all, business class offered flat bed seats. Plus, with free drinks, you could both take a hair of the dog approach to recovery and pre-game at the same time! Unfortunately, this flight that’s nearly always on time was delayed six hours and landing on New Year’s Day at 12:30 a.m.

Time travel can be imprecise however Taylor Swift is going to attempt it, in order to perform her show in Tokyo and still make the Super Bowl rested and relaxed.

Taylor Swift has broadened out interest in football, and the Super Bowl. This year there will be more fans than ever. And while she’ll charter a plane to Vegas – her own plane can’t make the trip non-stop – most celebrities do fly commercial for long haul. The economics of private jet travel work far better for short trips. That’s what international first class is for, often not people ‘buying up’ from business but ‘trading down’ from charters.

American Airlines is even getting in on the Taylor Swift Super Bowl mania, ‘tailoring’ flight numbers to the event. American Airlines has had clever flight numbers for awhile .. 1776 to Boston, 1492 to Columbus, 420 to Denver, 777 to Vegas… now there’s this:

In 2015, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, then President of American Airlines, went as Taylor Swift to the company’s Halloween party.

These American Airlines flights, though, don’t do time travel which Taylor will need to take advantage of. But it can be a confusing concept, even for airline agents. Years ago Ben Schlappig of One Mile at a Time and I did a joint session teaching award booking at a frequent traveler conference. We each gave each other ‘challenges’ to research award space and then call the airline to make a booking live. Neither of us knew what the other would come up with.

  • Ben (aka Lucky) made me use Delta SkyMiles to book business class to India and back on specific dates using partner airlines. I found availability on Aeroflot and Saudia. When I called Delta on speaker phone in front of an audience of hundreds the SkyMiles agent said exactly what I’d told the audience to expect, “Air France is our only partner in SkyTeam.” I had to put the phone on mute because of the roars of laughter.

  • I challenged Ben to book a US Airways business class award to South Asia but priced as a less expensive North Asia award, and return to the U.S. arriving back the day before his first flight to Asia departed.

When Ben called US Airways he had no problem with the pricing. He just repeated the mantra that everywhere he was flying was in North Asia. He booked a flight from the West Coast to Tokyo “in North Asia” and wanted to connect to Bangkok “in North Asia.” US Airways agents manually applied pricing then, and in Ben’s words only understood three regions of the world (“Europe, America, and The China”).

But he got tripped up on “time travel.” The agent simply could not understand, and would not book, a connecting flight after his Tokyo – Los Angeles leg that landed the day before it left. Time travel across the international date line can be hard! But it’s going to be possible for Taylor Swift to perform in Tokyo and still comfortably ensconce herself in Las Vegas in advance of the Super Bowl.

(HT: Hans Mast)

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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  1. I’m going to have a great Monday knowing this information. Hope everyone else does too.

  4. Bless her.

    Saved me hours since I won’t watch her love fest in the SB and waste money on SB snacks.

  5. I think it would be best for her and most cost effective not to charter. Her Falcon 900LX has enough range to get her to Seattle, especially if the flight is in the jet stream part of the time. A quick partial fueling and she would probably get to Las Vegas in time for the late dinner reservation. I have flown between Narita and LAX many times and the passage is often quite quick in the winter, almost always getting in early. For instance ANA NH118 (currently in the air) from HND to SEA is listed at just under 9 hours. Clear customs while the airplane is being fueled and inspected. Then 2:30 hours to LAS.

  6. It’s too bad that this game will be less about football and all the players except for him. Because of her.

  7. @Dave…..maybe you haven’t heard yet, too busy grousing. NFL and the players love all the Taylor Swift involvement with their games. Brings in tons of money!!

  8. WOW! Whatever happened to your blog over the past few months is quite awful. Sorry to see this.

    Now removing from my browser speedial, so I no longer have to see these types of posts.

  9. I’m not going to bust on her. She has attended every game but one. She is supporting her boyfriend and does it in fan gear and as unobtrusively as is practical, meaning she’s not causing a scene or a security issue in the general seating. What the media does with that… however- the flight tracker for this is going to rival NORADs Santa Tracker

  10. So much snark. It’s a lighthearted story that is technically tangentially related to Air Travel.

  11. The biggest money suck in human history…I wish she time travel to another dimension or at least Uranus

  13. Good lord! Why are people so prone to be so sadly negative? Lighten up, folks! It’s a lighthearted story about the marvels of air travel. And about a human that, like it or not, has captivated much of the world’s attention. And those millions (yes millions) of people that do pay attention to her are more than happy to do so. Live and let live, I say, and power to positive people. It’s just sad that you snarky ones are quite obviously not positive. Are you ever? .Jeeez….

  14. Good for her and #87, it’s about time she dated an Alpha male.
    I will download the game sans all the commercials and halftime shilling.

  15. Actually, she also has a Falcon 7X, which has a range of 5900NM- non-stop from Hamada to Las Vegas

  16. Actually, Taylor Swift has two jet planes. 1) A Dassault Falcon 900 LX. This is her small jet plane and can travel 8,900 Km on a full tank of fuel. 2) Taylor’s second jet plane is a Dassualt Falcon 7X, with a range of 11,000 Km and a cruising speed of 900 Km/h. Tokyo to Las Vegas is a distance of 9680 Km. So technically Taylor Swift could easily make the trip in her Dassault 7X Jet plane. She could also stop by Hawaii for a fuel up pit stop. So Taylor wouldn’t have to CHARTER a private jet plane, she could EASILY do it with her own Jet plane.

  17. Her Dassault Falcon 7X has a range of 11,000 Km, with a cruising speed of 900 Km/h. Tokyo to Las Vegas is a distance of 9730 Km. Taylor could also make a fuel up pit stop in Hawaii on her way to Las Vegas. So she won’t need to CHARTER a jet plane.

  18. Taylor Swift has two jet planes. 1) Dassault Falcon 900 LX with a travel distance of 8,900 Km. 2) And a Dassault 7X with a travel distance of 11,000 Km with a cruising speed of 900 Km/h. So from Tokyo to Las Vegas is a distance of 9630 Km. So there for Thee Great Pop Princess will not have to charter a private jet plane.

  19. Did you know that Taylor Swift not only owns two Dassault jet planes, but she also owns over 100 guitars. YUP !! That’s alot of guitars.

  20. This reminds me when Phil Collins performed at Live Aid in London and then took the Concorde to NYC to perform in Philly on the same day. Again, a light-hearted aviation story.

  21. Likely no stop in Hawaii. The normal route is north over Aleutian Islands and Alaska, so way out of the way. Seattle would be the stop, but not required unless her plane is short on Pacific Northwest oysters.

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