Partiers Attempt to Celebrate New Year's Twice With Flight Between Time Zones, Accidentally Land in Wrong Year

"You only live once, but you can celebrate New Year's Eve twice."

Minutes From Midnight

A group of travelers attempting to turn back the clock to ring in the new year twice got a rude awakening.

In late December, United Airlines offered a flight from Guam to Honolulu, Hawaii, which takes just over seven hours and crosses the International Date Line. In effect, passengers on board the plane technically lose a day, which means they could do the countdown to 2024 twice.

"You only live once, but you can celebrate New Year's Eve twice," the airline tweeted at the time.

While the trip was meant to land in Honolulu at 6:50 pm on December 31 local time, a lengthy delay forced passengers to land in the wrong year. The flight was a whopping six hours late because of a late inbound flight — which meant that it landed 30 minutes after midnight.

"Great idea, too bad it got delayed!" one traveler tweeted. "I was supposed to be on this flight. Double new year isn’t happening anymore. Maybe next year?"

Plane Bad Luck

According to travel blog One Mile at a Time, this specific flight "has to be one of the most punctual flights in United’s system," being on time 95 percent of the time. The last time it landed after midnight was on April 20, according to the blog.

Flight UA200 wasn't the only flight attempting to jump the International Date Line. Also attempting the stunt were Cathay Pacific's CX872, which flew from Hong Kong to San Francisco, and All Nippon Airway's Tokyo to LA flight.

According to Aviation24, both flights managed to arrive well before midnight on December 31, allowing the time travelers on board to celebrate New Year's Eve twice.

So at least a few revelers got to pull it off.

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