Mentioned above about time in and out of the bubble. I think in "island time" its been a matter of months where in "real world time" its been a matter of years. Not 100% though. Confused at how much time has passed on the island because most people either left and lived off the island or were jumping around in time.We know Jack, Kate, Sawyer are now in the same time as the events with Jacob being killed by Ben. But is that "in island time" months or years from the crash? I think its still months even though people were off island for longer but not sure, thoughts?
Sawyer, Juliette, etc spent three years with the Dharma Initiative, the same amount of time that Jack, Kate, etc spent off the island once they escaped. The Ajira crash is in 2007, 3 years after the flight 815 crash so they are all now matching up to the same time line and have moved forward to the same point in time right after the Ajira crash. I believe the Others living at the temple have also had 3 years pass by. The biggest clue being Cindy the stewardess who had very short hair on the flight and now has long curly hair at the temple. She was just an early initiate shortly after the crash, but now seems to be fully integrated into the Others community. It also explains the 2 young kids abducted from the tail end of 815 recurrence last night and their aging since the original crash. (Cindy also said "the first plane," which indicates the Others at the temple know about the Ajira flight crashing too.)As for the "new" timeline where the plane didn't crash, last nights events are all in 2004 shortly after the plane landed. I think it will be fairly easy for the writers to move the "new" timeline story forward in time very quickly to eventually have both storylines taking place at the exact same point and run concurrently in 2007. All you have to do is skip forward a few weeks here, a few months there, explaining what is happening to the new timeline characters (such as Jack & Locke having a consult and surgery and maybe Locke walking again. That would take months of story time.)