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LAX → DEN

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

Los Angeles to Denver is 1,385 km of great circle — 861 mi — and an estimated 2h 13m in the air. Both ends are in North America.

Great circle
1,385 km
861 mi
Estimated in the air
2h 13m
block time
Furthest from equator
39.9°N
at 100% along
One lap of Earth
3.5%
of 40,075 km
The Los Angeles to Denver route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Los Angeles the path crosses the United States.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 39.9°N, 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

DEN

Denver

Denver, United States · North America

39.9°N, 104.7°W

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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