Make Calendar understand flight times across time zones?

What they need is a special function ADD FLIGHT, and if time zone support is on, it allows you to put the beginning and end of the even in different zones. As far as I can see the only way to deal with it now is to make your DEPARTURE and ARRIVAL separate events. This allows you to put them in different time zones. Annoying, but it should work.

Cheers,

Michael

Had a call with Rick in support today on this very issue, and there is a solution! But you have to be on the right platform!!!!!

Here is the trick: use the iOS version of Calendar. When you enter the flight information into an event, and you click on the start time, the information below INCLUDING TIME ZONE is specific for the start time! When you click on the end time, you can select a DIFFERENT time zone. Amazing! Problem is solved.

However, if you are on a Mac, the desktop version does not have this option. You can't "split" the time zones. Go ahead and add the event, using the "local" times at the different airports, but only the first time zone will be correct. I find this easier on my laptop because I am also entering locator numbers and e-ticket number....lots of typing. Save it. Then open the same event on your iPhone or iPad and when you click on the end time, you can select the correct time zone! Voila.

Okay, all is not perfect, Get the two OS versions working the same way!!!! AND when you enter a location for the event (Timbiktu Airport) the event should be smart enough to offer you that time zone as a starting point! Right now it just gives you the default. There's something to add in the next update.

There is a solution that does exactly what you want. It isn't as simple as checking a box, but isn't super hard, either.

Basically, use the UTC time zone and convert your departure and arrival times into UTC. UTC, by the way, the modern equivalent of Greenwich Mean Time (more or less).

After that, you will find that no matter what timezone you are in, the flights will be correct.

You can convert your times to UTC using 'timeanddate.com' or a similar tool. Once you know the offset, of course, the math is easy, although it is easy to make a mistake (adding instead of subtracting, wrong date, etc.).

I thought of an simpler way to get to the same result, without converting to UTC (or another time zone).

Enter the departure time in, and the correct timezone for the departure location.

Use the duration of the flight (usually, but not always) this appears on the flight information somewhere to put the end location in. So, if the flight is 5 hours, add five hours to the departure time.

This will be correct, regardless of what timezone you use to 'view' the result.

Sorry, can you give a specific example? Otherwise I don't see how this solves anything. I must be missing something. And for clarification, when you say "duration" I assume you mean if a given duration is 5hr, then for a 12pm flight you're scheduling the appointment as from: 12pm, to 5pm? OS X 10.8 and prior has no other option for scheduling the duration/time span.

So, as I understand it, with your last suggestion and using an itinerary where the departure and arrival are in different time zones, the issue is now you technically have the duration of the flight shown in your calendar (i.e. a color coded block of time), but if you wish to quickly see the actual local arrival time (i.e. the time zone of the destination), your calendar appoint would be scheduled incorrectly and showing the wrong "to" time, and you'd need to have noted the actual local time for your arrival somewhere for reference should you need it. This sounds pretty messy.

I am using Google calendar for all my trips since Google CAN set events start and ends in different timezones and added this calendar to "Calendar" App. I am disappointed by the lack of attention from Apple to a simple request like this.

Only way I have found is to convert the scheduled times to my east coast time zone and then turn on time zone support...that way it corrects the times to what the itinerary shows...have to fool it into doing what I want.

Not that I have found to work...as one who has had to travel a great deal it is frustrating to have to fool the system or keep a copy of the itinerary loaded. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to create a "smart" system that would translate times entered into actual location times rather than where you are when entering them.

Wondering if anyone has any actual solution to this?

Is this realy just a flaw in calendar.app and has never been addressed in all the time OS X (not to mention OS's prior and/or iCal) has existed?
Is there no official Apple solution?

I wish Apple would say something about this issue--better yet, I wish they would pay attention to the community discussions and FIX it! I just ran into this problem but reading through Apple Support Communities I realize it's an issue that has affected many, many people for years and OS after OS and Apple does not seem to care or want to address it. Worse--from what I've read in the community posts, it has actually become more complicated with iCloud and Maverick (!!!) How ridiculous (does anyone think it's actually helpful?!) can it be that all your appointments change time when you change time zones?!?! Please, Apple--do something about this!

The issue that the OP, others, and I were referring to is scheduling 1 event/appointment that included a departure and arrival time where the arrival time (or "to" time) is before the departure time (or "from" time) due to a time zone change. Both arrival/to time or date cannot be "before" the departure/from time regardless of the time zone setting (i.e. UTC etc.) in the Calnedar/iCal app within a single event/appiontment, at least from OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and prior. I am not aware whether this is possible in OS X Mavericks, etc., and maybe that is what you are referring to. Otherwise, the only current solution is to create individual appointments for each the departure and arrival times, which still can be a messy situation in terms of viewing your appointments. The solution we're ultimately looking for is setting a time zone individually for the to and from variables within a single appointment.

Hi there, o_m_r!

I see what you mean... but unless you are flying some very special machines that I'm not familiar with, you can't arrive before you departed, assuming you convert the departure and arrival times to the same time zone.

The local time at the destination may be earlier than the arrival time, particularly on flights over the international date line (or if you are flying an SR-71), but assuming you convert both departure and arrival to the same time zone (say, UTC, just because that is the standard reference), you will always arrive after you depart.

Let me provide a specific example, in local time:

Korean Air Flight 51, departing Toyko at 7pm on July 12, arriving Honolulu at 8:50 am on July 12. The passenger experiences July 12th twice, in effect, and appears to land before he or she took off.

Converting the times to UTC:

Korrean Air Flight 51, departing Toyko at 10am on July 12th UTC, arriving Honolulu at 6:50pm on July 12th UTC. The flight takes 8h50m.

Of course, I may have completely misunderstood your point, in which case, I apologize, and would be very interested to see an example of what you mean!

Thanks, in an case – it has been nice to finally get iCal to do what I want for this kind of travel.

Hello Tor Lundgren,

Of course no one means to say they're traveling back in time, but the OP was making the point that many users would like to have the ability to set individual time zones for each the from and to time so they can quickly schedule a single appointment for their flight using the schedule as it's listed in their itinerary.

If I'm understanding your process correctly, you are first manually converting the itinerary to UTC before entering it into the appointment. If you have to first manually convert to UTC before you enter the times into the appointment, I don't see how it wouldn't be easier to simply create individual appointments for your departure and arrival times, and have no need to do any converting.

Otherwise, Calendar/iCal still won't let you add the earlier "to" time on the same date within the same single appointment, regardless of the time zone designation (i.e. UTC etc.) when you're initially scheduling the appointment.

I myself like to have the single appointment so that a color coded span of time is visually shown in my calendar month view for the entire span of my trip. As it stands with what is possible in the Calendar/iCal app, your solution would provide a work around for this and allow for a single span to be shown for the duration of the trip, and in that case I agree it makes sense to do the manual conversion prior to scheduling the appointment. Thank you for that suggestion.

You do realize that you are not addressing Apple here. This is a user to user support forum. If you want Apple to know that you would like them to "add in the next update", then you need to type this where they will see it, the feedback page. Go HERE, and then click on the appropriate subject.