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KEF → JFK

Reykjavík to New York: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Keflavik to John F. Kennedy is 4,163 km of great circle — 2,587 mi — and an estimated 5h 40m in the air. It crosses from Europe to North America.

Great circle
4,163 km
2,587 mi
Estimated in the air
5h 40m
block time
Furthest from equator
64.0°N
at 0% along
One lap of Earth
10.4%
of 40,075 km
The Reykjavík to New York route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Reykjavík the path crosses 2,217 km of open water, then Canada, then the United States.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 64.0°N, 0% of the way along.

Flying the line that looks straight on a Mercator map — one constant compass bearing — would cover 4,255 km. That is 91 km further, about 2% more, and roughly 7m of extra flying.

From

KEF

Keflavik

Reykjavík, Iceland · Europe

64.0°N, 22.6°W

To

JFK

John F. Kennedy

New York, United States · North America

40.6°N, 73.8°W

Flights to New York

How these numbers are worked out

The distance is the great circle between the two airports’ real coordinates — the shortest path over a sphere, and the measure airlines and loyalty programmes use. It is computed, not looked up from a table of published routes.

The time is an estimate derived from that distance, using the same arithmetic Orbit uses when you log a flight without timestamps: a typical airliner block speed of 500 mph plus thirty minutes for taxi, climb and descent. Real schedules run longer or shorter depending on winds, air traffic control routing and how far the gate is from the runway. Aircraft also do not fly perfect great circles — jet streams, airspace closures and ETOPS limits all bend the path, usually by a few percent.

Why the shortest path is a curve →

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