Daylight saving time ends November 1 in most of the US, and that small change reaches further than your oven clock. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, clocks fall back to 1 a.m., which hands everyone an extra hour at the tail end of Halloween night. For travelers, it also quietly reshuffles time differences with much of the world. Cancun, which is usually an hour behind New York, will be on exactly the same time. Hawaii gets an hour closer to the East Coast, and Dubai and Tokyo get an hour further away. Your flight itself won't be thrown off, but the math around it can be.
What Happens to Flights on Sunday
Airlines list every departure and arrival in the local time of the airport, and they build the clock change into their schedules well in advance. So the times printed on your ticket or boarding pass already account for Sunday's switch, and your plane isn't going to leave an hour early or late because of it.
Where it gets strange is overnight. If you're on a red-eye Saturday night, the clock at your destination will fall back while you're in the air. That means the flight can look an hour longer or shorter than usual when you compare the departure and arrival times, even though the plane is flying the same trip it always does. Trust the times on the ticket rather than your own math. Flights scheduled between 1 and 2 a.m. on Sunday are rare, but if yours is one of them, check the airline's app, since that hour happens twice.
Early Sunday flights are the other trap. Your phone will switch on its own, but an older alarm clock, a car's dashboard or a hotel wake-up call might not. If you've got a 6 a.m. departure, give yourself a minute to make sure the time you're looking at is the new one. The good news is that if something is still on the old time, it'll run an hour fast, so you'll be early rather than late.
Where the Time Difference Changes
Not every place changes its clocks, and some already changed theirs. That's why the gap between the US and many popular destinations moves on Sunday, sometimes in a direction people don't expect. Here's how it shifts from New York:
- Cancun: from one hour behind to the same time. Most of Mexico, including Cancun and Mexico City, stopped using daylight saving time years ago, so Mexico City goes from two hours behind New York to one.
- Puerto Rico: from the same time to an hour ahead, since Puerto Rico doesn't change its clocks either.
- Hawaii and Arizona: an hour closer. Honolulu goes from six hours behind New York to five, and most of Arizona goes from three behind to two, which also puts Phoenix an hour ahead of Los Angeles for the winter.
- Dubai, Tokyo and most of Asia: an hour further away. Dubai goes from eight hours ahead to nine, and Tokyo from 13 to 14.
- Sydney: from 15 hours ahead to 16. Australia's southeast moved its clocks forward in early October for its own summer, so the gap there grows for the next few months.
Europe is the exception that's been confusing people all week. The UK and most of Europe turned their clocks back on October 25, so the gap with the US has been an hour smaller than usual since then. On Sunday, the US catches up, and London goes back to being five hours ahead of New York.
What to Do Before You Fly
If you're traveling this weekend or setting up anything with someone abroad next week, a few minutes of checking saves a lot of trouble. Look at every booking that sits outside your ticket, like a hotel shuttle, a rental car pickup, a train or a tour, since those are set in local time and won't adjust for you. Calendar invites are the other weak spot. If you scheduled a call with someone in Cancun or Dubai before the change, confirm the time with them rather than trusting the invite.
The new gaps will hold through the winter. US clocks spring forward again on March 14, 2027, and Europe follows two weeks later on March 28, which means another odd stretch where the Atlantic gap is an hour off. We'll remind you when it comes.
