Time technically goes faster on an airplane due to a phenomenon in physics called gravitational time dilation, as predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. According to this theory, gravity warps the fabric of space-time; the farther you are from a massive body (like the Earth), the weaker the gravitational pull, and the faster time passes. At a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, you are significantly farther from the Earth's core than a person on the ground, so your clock ticks slightly faster. However, there is a competing effect from Special Relativity called velocity time dilation, which states that the faster you move, the slower time passes. Because a plane is moving at roughly 500 mph, this effect pulls in the opposite direction. For a commercial flight, the gravitational effect (time speeding up) is slightly stronger than the velocity effect (time slowing down). Therefore, after a long-haul flight, you are technically a few nanoseconds "older" than if you had stayed on the ground. While this difference is far too small for a human to perceive without atomic clocks, it is a real and measurable effect that is even more significant for GPS satellites, which must constantly correct for time dilation to remain accurate.