Flying from Hong Kong to Beijing?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Hong Kong to Beijing?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Hong Kong to Beijing?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Hong Kong → Beijing
A medium flight from Hong Kong SAR China to China. Your watch stays put on arrival.
This route crosses the Tropic of Cancer, the northernmost latitude where the sun passes directly overhead.
The city between harbor and peaks
Hong Kong is a dense, vertical city wedged between Victoria Harbour and a ring of steep, forested peaks, split between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula on the mainland side. The MTR subway and the historic Star Ferry across the harbor cover the built-up core thoroughly, and the Airport Express runs nonstop from the airport on reclaimed land at Chek Lap Kok to the city center in under 25 minutes. Hong Kong dollars, English and Cantonese signage, and a separate legal and transit system set it apart from mainland China, even though it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. A car is rarely useful and rarely owned; nearly everyone moves by rail, ferry, or on foot.
Nearby airports
| 136 km / 85 mi |
Surrounding hubs
| 1,456 km / 905 mi | |
| 1,493 km / 928 mi | |
| 806 km / 501 mi |
China's imperial capital
Beijing is China's sprawling capital, a flat city laid out in concentric ring roads around the old imperial core of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It is large and spread out, with a vast subway doing the heavy lifting since driving means dense traffic and long distances. The historic center sits in the middle, with modern business and embassy districts further out and housing beyond. The scale is the thing to plan around.
Surrounding hubs
| 1,723 km / 1,071 mi | |
| 1,762 km / 1,095 mi | |
| 902 km / 560 mi |
Find out which side of the plane to sit on.
Pick your airports, set your departure time, and you're done.
We calculate the sun's position based on your flight path and departure time, then tell you which side of the plane gets direct sun and which stays shaded. No guessing, just math.
Enter your flight
Pick your departure and arrival airports and set your departure time at the departure airport. FlightSide estimates the duration and you can adjust it if you know the exact schedule.
We track the sun along your route
Your flight path is broken into hundreds of points. At each one we check where the sun is and which side of the plane it faces.
You get a recommendation
Which side of the plane to sit on, left or right, depending on whether you'd rather avoid the sun or enjoy it. The percentages and the map are there if you want to see why.
Want to go deeper? Accuracy, edge cases, polar routes — see the FAQ →
Notes from the product.
Small updates, route observations, and clearer explanations for how the app keeps evolving.
Type less, wait less, wonder more
Airport search now understands metro codes and old city names, FlightSide loads noticeably faster, and a new Feeling lucky button chooses a flight for anyone without one in mind.
A closer look at the route, not just the seat
FlightSide now shows the two cities and key details about the flight alongside the seat recommendation: confirm you picked the right airports, read the time change off two clocks, and check the return leg.
It's all about the sun (after all)
Not all sunlight reaches the side windows. FlightSide now weighs the sun’s angle to the cabin and shows twilight along the route.