Flying from Hong Kong to San Francisco?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Hong Kong to San Francisco?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Hong Kong to San Francisco?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Hong Kong → San Francisco
A very long flight from Hong Kong SAR China to United States. You gain 15 hours on arrival.
You'll cross the International Date Line and the calendar rolls back a day at the crossing.
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
| 806 km / 501 mi | |
| 846 km / 526 mi | |
| 1,146 km / 712 mi |
The City by the Bay
San Francisco packs a famously hilly, fog-prone peninsula into about 122 sq km (47 sq mi), with the bay on one side and the Pacific on the other. It is one of the few American cities genuinely built for transit and walking: a dense streetcar, cable car, and bus network covers the city, and BART carries it onward to Oakland and Berkeley. Distances are short, but steep hills and scarce parking make a car more trouble than help in the core. Cool, foggy summers surprise visitors expecting California heat.
Surrounding hubs
| 543 km / 337 mi | |
| 665 km / 413 mi | |
| 719 km / 447 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.