can someone explain something to me about the international date line when travelling by air?

Question

how is it that is travelling from west to east by air the journey you lose a day when crossing the internatoional date line but at the same time you arrive 2 days later.

i`ve been looking at flights and if you leave on say the 1st you arrive on the 3rd how can this happen if you lose a day

Answer 1

You're looking at the tickets in the wrong direction. Traveling from Australia to the US, you typically arrive at about the same local time as you left. Traveling from the US to Australia, you get there two days later local time.

Answer 2

It all depends on the time you leave and it's actually when you're traveling from east to west that you will lose a day when you cross the dateline. For example, Hong Kong is 16 hours ahead of San Francisco or the west coast, so if you leave on the 1st at 9:00pm, it's already 1:00pm on the 2nd in Hong Kong when you depart, and a flight to Hong Kong is typically 15 hrs, so if you add 15 hrs. to 1:00pm on the 2nd, it will be 4:00am on the 3rd when you arrive in Hong Kong. It is confusing, but if you leave on a flight shortly after midnight you don't lose a day and will arrive the next calendar day early in morning, I'll let you do the math on that one. The good thing is that you get your day back when go home, as a flight from Hong Kong to the west coast will typically arrive 3-4 hrs. before the time you left on the same day.

Answer 3

How long is your plane in the air- without figuring in the dateline thingy? A day? Lose another day to bring it up to two.
I suspect that you switched your directions- whenever I travel west to east, I gain a day. Which eventaully means that although I've been awake for 30 hours straight, it's still the same &£@@%* day. Traveling west loses the day.

It's just that the new day has to begin somewhere. The day is really continuous- the sun never goes out anywhere on the planet at the end of the local "day."