Skip to content
LAX → AKL

Los Angeles to Auckland: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Los Angeles to Auckland is 10,487 km of great circle — 6,516 mi — and an estimated 13h 32m in the air. It crosses from North America to Oceania.

Great circle
10,487 km
6,516 mi
Estimated in the air
13h 32m
block time
Furthest from equator
37.0°S
at 100% along
One lap of Earth
26.2%
of 40,075 km
The Los Angeles to Auckland route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Los Angeles the path crosses 10,435 km of open water.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 37.0°S, 100% of the way along.

Holding a single compass bearing the whole way would cover almost exactly the same ground, so on this route the flat map and the globe agree.

From

LAX

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, United States · North America

33.9°N, 118.4°W

Flights to Los Angeles
To

AKL

Auckland

Auckland, New Zealand · Oceania

37.0°S, 174.8°E

Flights to Auckland

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 →

Flown this one?

Orbit logs it in two taps and draws the arc on your own globe, along with every other flight you can remember. Free for your first 15.

Download now