Flight Duration Calculator

Flight duration calculator for scheduled departure and arrival times

This flight duration calculator is built for one specific job: calculating the scheduled gate-to-gate duration of a flight when you have the departure and arrival times shown on your itinerary, plus the time zone (UTC offset) for each airport. That is the most common real-world situation when you are planning a connection, deciding when to leave for the airport, or estimating when you will be awake and functional after landing. It is not an aircraft performance tool and it does not attempt to estimate airborne time using distance, winds, routing, or cruise speed. If your goal is travel planning, the schedule-based duration is the number you actually need.

Flight times are usually displayed in local time at each airport. That creates confusion because a flight can look “shorter” or “longer” on paper depending on time zone changes and date changes. Overnight flights, flights that cross midnight, and flights that cross the International Date Line are the classic cases where people misread the itinerary. This calculator resolves that by converting both the departure and arrival timestamps into a single reference frame (UTC) using your provided UTC offsets. Once both times are in the same reference frame, the duration is just the difference between them. You then get the duration in hours and minutes, plus optional conversions that show what the arrival time looks like in the departure time zone (useful for sleep planning) and what the departure time looks like in the arrival time zone (useful for explaining it to someone on the other end).

To use it, enter the departure date, departure time, and the departure UTC offset. Then enter the arrival date, arrival time, and the arrival UTC offset. If you want to add a simple buffer for real life, use the optional “extra minutes” field to add taxi time, connection padding, or expected delay. The calculator will show the scheduled duration first, then the adjusted duration including your extra minutes. It also reports the time zone difference between the two airports so you can quickly see whether you are traveling east (arrival time zone ahead) or west (arrival time zone behind). If the result comes out negative, your inputs are inconsistent, usually because the arrival date is wrong or the UTC offset is wrong for the season.

Assumptions and how to use this calculator

• This calculates scheduled gate-to-gate duration using local times and UTC offsets, not airborne time or distance-based estimates.
• UTC offsets must be entered explicitly (for example +02:00 or -05:00) and should match the date of travel, including daylight saving time when applicable.
• Dates are required because many flights cross midnight; if you omit or guess the date, you can easily flip the sign of the duration.
• The optional extra minutes are added on top of the scheduled duration as a simple planning buffer, not a probabilistic delay model.
• If your itinerary uses a named time zone (like “EST”) rather than a numeric offset, convert it to the correct UTC offset for your travel date before using this calculator.

Common questions

Is this the same as “air time”?

No. This is itinerary duration based on scheduled departure and arrival times. Air time is the time the aircraft spends in the air, which is typically shorter than gate-to-gate time because it excludes boarding, pushback, taxi, and sometimes holding patterns. For trip planning, the schedule duration is usually the right number because it matches when you actually leave and when you can actually get off the plane.

What if my flight crosses midnight or arrives the next day?

That is exactly why the calculator asks for dates. Enter the dates shown on your itinerary. If the flight departs on one day and arrives on the next, the duration will still calculate correctly once both timestamps are converted to UTC. If you enter the arrival date incorrectly, you will usually get a negative duration or an unrealistically large one.

Do I need the airport’s exact time zone name?

No. You only need the UTC offset for each airport on the travel date. Many places change offsets seasonally due to daylight saving time, so do not reuse an offset from a different month unless you are sure it is correct. If your itinerary shows only local times, the airline’s booking page or your phone’s world clock can help you confirm the offset.

Why does the duration look “wrong” compared to what I expected?

Most mistakes are input mistakes: a swapped sign on the offset, a missing leading zero in a time, or an arrival date that should be the next day. Another common issue is daylight saving time: the offset can change by one hour depending on the date. Fix the offsets first, then verify the dates, then re-check the times.

How should I use the “extra minutes” field?

Use it as a planning buffer for connection stress and real-world variability. Add a small number if you are trying to estimate when you will be at baggage claim, in a rideshare, or ready for a meeting. It is intentionally simple. If you need a full connection planner across multiple legs, that is a different tool and a different problem.