From the moment the Kansas City Chiefs clinched their second straight trip to the Super Bowl, fans already started looking into the incredibly difficult travel day Taylor Swift would face in order to make the game in Las Vegas.
And apparently, it could get even tougher.
When boyfriend Travis Kelce and the rest of his Chiefs teammates are preparing to take on the 49ers game week, Swift will be in Tokyo to play four consecutive shows as the Eras Tour’s international leg restarts. The final Tokyo show will take place on Saturday night in Japan — the day before the Super Bowl — but the time difference gives Swift an opportunity to perform her show and still make it back stateside on Saturday evening.
Charles Curtis broke down that entire journey here.
That journey, though, could face a potentially unforeseen challenge.
Landing in Vegas won't be easy
In a recent story from The Athletic, reporter Alex Andrejev spoke to experts in the private aviation industry. And that was when it was revealed that booking a landing time in Las Vegas during Super Bowl week will be virtually impossible for private flights … unless a landing time was booked well in advance.
Via The Athletic:
“I have four clients who wanted to fly in for the Super Bowl and we had to cancel their trips because nobody is able to get the proper times to land in Las Vegas,” the account manager said.
“The way that I got it explained by operators is that (they) don’t have any more availability at any of the Las Vegas airports that can receive a jet, whether it’s private or whether it’s commercial. When I say commercial, that’s someone renting an airplane to fly,” the account manager continued.
The Paramount Business Jets account manager said the plans would have to have been in place “potentially a couple of months ago” to ensure the slots to land or depart in Las Vegas that weekend.
Now, given that Taylor Swift and her team are no strangers to the world of flying privately to major events, it’s possible those logistics were sorted out months ago. But if Swift is somehow unable to land in Las Vegas, her travel day might have gotten considerably longer.
She may have to land at LAX and drive
It seems a bit farfetched that The Taylor Swift wouldn’t be able to land at a Las Vegas-area airport, but The Athletic did float the possibility of her landing in Los Angeles and driving the rest of the way.
A flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles is slightly shorter than a flight to Vegas — about 9 hours, 45 minutes compared to 11 hours — but she’d then have to be in a car for an additional four hours (or even up to five hours depending on traffic) and still make it to Vegas on Saturday night.
Now, while it is probably easier to fly private and be in a luxury SUV with a driver than, say, fly economy for 12 hours and drive yourself to Vegas, that would still be a ton of travel for any person to go through in a day. She’d then have to make a quick turnaround and head to Australia for her tour dates after the game.
In all likelihood, Swift will land in Vegas. But worst case, it sounds like she could be facing quite the day of travel.
It would be the epitome of showing up for your partner.
