CabinShade
Looking for a SunFlight alternative?
SunFlight (now at sunflight.org, formerly sunflight.net) is a long-running tool that shows the sun's path along your flight on a map. If you're after a different take on the same question, or a direct seat recommendation, CabinShade is a free alternative built for one job: telling you which window seat to book.
Try it: enter your airports, date and departure time, and CabinShade tells you the shady window (seat A on the left, or F/K on the right), how long each side spends in the sun, and where the sun sits along your route.
What CabinShade does
- A direct answer. "The best window seat is A": a seat letter, not just a map to interpret.
- Sun and shade time. How many hours the sunny side gets direct sun, and how long you'll be in the shade.
- 6,700+ airports. Search by code or by city: "Tokyo" finds Haneda and Narita, "London" finds Heathrow, Gatwick and City.
- Local time, done right. Departure times use the origin airport's own time zone and daylight-saving rules.
- Route map. Your great-circle route with the sun's position marked along the way.
- Seasonal route guides. Precomputed answers for hundreds of popular routes, for every departure time and season, including where sunrise and sunset appear.
- Shareable results. Every result has its own link, plus an image card you can send to whoever you're flying with.
- Free, no account. Works in any browser on phone or desktop.
When SunFlight may suit you better
SunFlight shows sunrise and sunset times along the trip and supports multi-leg journeys in one go. CabinShade handles one flight at a time. For a connection, check each leg separately. Both tools use the shortest (great-circle) path, so for the same flight they should agree on where the sun is.
Popular routes
See which side gets the sun on LAX to JFK, JFK to LAX, London to Los Angeles, Tokyo Haneda to New York, Singapore to Melbourne and many more.
Other questions
Is CabinShade free?
Yes. There's no account, no app to install and no limit on searches for normal use.
How accurate is it?
It uses standard solar-position formulas along the great-circle route. Real flight paths, delays and aircraft types can shift the answer near sunrise and sunset. How the calculation works.
Which seat letter is the window?
A is the left window on nearly every plane. The right window is F on single-aisle jets and usually K on wide-bodies. Seat letters explained.