New York to London is about 3,500 miles and 7 hours. New York to Tokyo is 6,700 miles and 14 hours, and Los Angeles to Tokyo is 5,500 miles and 11 hours. The trans-Pacific route map is not only longer than the transatlantic one, it is thinner: service concentrates at a handful of US gateways and a handful of Asian hubs, so a US-Asia meetup is chosen from a short list rather than a wide one.
Which short list depends on where the Asian side lives. If they are in Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong, the answer is one of the Asian hubs, reached nonstop from a US gateway. If they are in Bangkok, Bali or Singapore and the US side is on the East Coast, a hub in Europe or the Gulf can give a similar total flight time with a better trip at the end of it. Both cases are below.
The trans-Pacific route map
Three things follow from the distances. First, there are fewer routes: trans-Pacific service runs from LAX, SFO, SEA, ORD, JFK, EWR and DFW to a handful of Asian hubs, and secondary US cities such as Atlanta, Boston and Houston have a thinner Asian map, especially in winter.
Second, jet lag is heavier on both sides. A US East Coast trip to Tokyo is a 13 or 14 hour time-zone shift, and recovery takes three or four days at each end. On a one-week reunion that removes most of a third of the trip.
Third, splitting the burden is harder. The Pacific has no equivalent of Iceland or the Azores, no genuine midpoint with usable flight access. Hawaii is the closest thing and it only helps the US side. The fair-midpoint framing does not survive the crossing, and the workable question is which cities both people can reach without a connection.
The five main Asian hubs
Five Asian airports do almost all the work for US-Asia meetups.
Tokyo (NRT and HND). Nonstop service from LAX, SFO, SEA, ORD, JFK, EWR, DFW, IAD, BOS, IAH, DTW, MSP, ATL, HNL and several others, split across Narita and Haneda. Within Asia, Tokyo connects to most large cities by short flight. As a meeting point it is straightforward logistically, deep on food and culture, and expensive on the ground without being extreme.
Seoul (ICN). Nonstops from LAX, SFO, SEA, ORD, JFK, EWR, DFW, ATL and HNL. Korean Air and Asiana run wide networks and Delta has a major partnership through ICN. The airport is modern, the city is less crowded than Tokyo, and Seoul has become a destination rather than a transfer point. A reasonable pick for groups who want a large Asian city without Tokyo’s visitor volume.
Singapore (SIN). The Southeast Asian gateway, with direct flights from LAX, SFO, SEA, JFK, EWR and IAH. Singapore Airlines runs one of the longest commercial routes in the world from Newark, about 19 hours nonstop. For US groups meeting Australian, Indonesian, Indian or Southeast Asian friends and relatives, SIN is often the natural point. It is expensive and logistically simple.
Hong Kong (HKG). Service has thinned since 2020 and remains substantial: LAX, SFO, JFK, EWR and BOS, with Cathay Pacific rebuilding. HKG connects widely within Asia by short flight, and Hong Kong is compact and dense enough to fill three days without a plan.
Taipei (TPE). Direct from LAX, SFO, SEA, ONT, EWR, ORD and IAH, with EVA Air and China Airlines running frequent service. Cheaper than Tokyo or Singapore, with a strong food scene and easy logistics. Worth checking when the Asian-side member is in Taiwan, southern China or the Philippines.
These five also connect well to each other, so if the Asian-side person lives elsewhere, one short hop usually closes the gap: Tokyo to Osaka, Seoul to Busan, Singapore to Bangkok. The guide to the most connected cities in Asia-Pacific ranks the region’s hubs by route count, with international routes counted separately.
The US gateways
From the US side, six airports do most of the work.
- LAX. Nonstops to all five major Asian hubs plus Manila, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai and Bangalore. The widest Asian map on the West Coast.
- SFO. Comparable depth, with United operating most of the Asia service: Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Manila and Shanghai.
- SEA. A Delta and Alaska hub, with solid Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei service and less depth than LAX or SFO.
- ORD. The Midwest gateway, with nonstops to Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and seasonally Delhi.
- JFK and EWR. The East Coast pair. JFK serves Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Mumbai; EWR has Singapore and Tokyo on United. Thinner than the West Coast gateways and still workable.
- DFW. American’s Asia hub, with Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. The usual choice for groups in the south-central US.
If the US-side person is outside these gateways, in Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte or Detroit, they will usually take at least one connection even on a trip that looks direct. That belongs in the comparison from the start, because it changes the total by three to five hours.
For US flight connectivity more broadly, the most connected cities in the US guide ranks the gateway airports.
Meeting in Europe instead of Asia
The case for meeting west rather than east applies when the US side is on the East Coast and the Asian side is in South or Southeast Asia: Bangkok, Bali, Singapore, Mumbai or Delhi. There is no nonstop between New York and Bangkok, and one-stop routings via Tokyo, Hong Kong or Doha run about 20 hours. Even routing through Singapore, roughly 19 hours nonstop from Newark, the Bangkok leg adds two hours in each direction.
Dubai and Istanbul change the arithmetic. New York to Dubai is about 12 hours nonstop and Bangkok to Dubai about 7, so the two legs total around 19 hours, much the same as going east. London works the same way: roughly 7 hours from JFK and 12 from Bangkok.
Meeting at a hub in Europe or the Gulf therefore does not ask either person to fly appreciably more than a meetup in Asia would. It trades a route through one hub for a route through another, and it comes with three practical advantages.
- More flights to choose from. Dubai, Istanbul and London all have several daily services from both sides, which loosens the date constraint.
- A destination neither person lives in. For a US East Coast and South Asia pairing, Europe is a trip for everybody rather than a home city for one of them.
- A more even jet-lag split. Breaking a 13-hour time difference into two shorter shifts spreads the recovery across the group instead of concentrating it on one person.
The same holds if the Asian-side person is in India. New York to Delhi nonstop is about 14 hours, and via London or Dubai the total is similar while the meeting point becomes a place worth spending days in. It is worth running the numbers both ways before defaulting to Asia.
Destination-first picks
Sometimes the destination is the point and fairness is secondary, because the group wants a week in one specific place. A few destinations work that way for US-Asia groups.
Bangkok. Not a midpoint by any measure, and cheap enough on the ground that a long flight still comes out ahead on cost. No US airline flies nonstop, so one stop via Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong is the norm from any US gateway.
Bali. Similar logic, with most US travellers connecting through Singapore, Tokyo or Seoul. Worth the travel time for a group that is staying more than a week.
Vietnam (Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City). Vietnam Airlines runs the only US nonstop, San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City, four times a week. Everyone else connects through Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei or Singapore. Cheaper than most of Asia and a strong destination for a group.
Hong Kong. The compact-city argument: three full days of trip in three calendar days, and enough to do that jet lag is easier to absorb.
For these the nonstop-for-everyone rule relaxes. Pick the destination first, then work out the routing. Use Midway to see the direct options for your specific pair of origins first, since a city one short hop away sometimes has much better coverage than the obvious choice.
Routing before destination
In most cases the itinerary matters more than the destination on a trip this long. Two flights with a night between them are less exposed to a missed connection than a tight transfer, and a day lost to transit is a real share of a two-week trip. So the reasonable order is to find the hubs both sides can reach with one flight, compare the totals for flight time and jet lag, and let the destination follow from the routing.
Open Midway with everyone’s home airports, including any Asian-side member who is not at an obvious hub, and the result is the list of cities every person can fly to without a connection. From there the choice is between the shortest combined flight time and the city the group would rather spend a week in.
For groups split across more than two continents, the intercontinental meeting points cluster index covers the wider logic, including the European hubs that work better than Asian ones for US East Coast and South Asia pairings.