Flying from New York City to Chicago?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from New York City to Chicago?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from New York City to Chicago?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
New York City → Chicago
A short flight within United States. The clock rolls back 1 hour when you land.
The city that never sleeps
New York is a dense five-borough city served by three major airports: JFK and LaGuardia in Queens, and Newark Liberty across the Hudson in New Jersey. Manhattan carries the main business districts, museums, theaters, and postcard skyline, but Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island are not side notes; they are much of the city. A car is rarely useful for visitors once they are inside the core. Airport choice matters here because each airport starts the ground trip from a different edge of the region.
City access
LaGuardia is the closest of the three to Manhattan, in northern Queens, but it has no rail link of its own. Reaching the city means a short bus to a subway transfer, or a taxi or car service straight to the center. It is quick when traffic cooperates and slow when it does not, so leave margin around the morning and evening peaks.
Nearby airports
| 17 km / 11 mi | |
| 27 km / 17 mi | |
| 154 km / 96 mi |
Surrounding hubs
| 297 km / 185 mi | |
| 345 km / 214 mi | |
| 522 km / 324 mi |
The Windy City
Chicago lines the southwest shore of Lake Michigan, a flat, gridded city with one of the great American downtowns at its heart. Elevated trains and a deep commuter-rail network make the core genuinely transit-friendly, and the lakefront ties the city together. Beyond downtown and the north-side neighborhoods, Chicago spreads into a huge belt of suburbs. Winters are hard, and the wind off the lake lives up to the nickname.
Surrounding hubs
| 537 km / 334 mi | |
| 700 km / 435 mi | |
| 965 km / 600 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.