- Great circle
- 9,682 km
- 6,016 mi
- Estimated in the air
- 12h 32m
- block time
- Furthest from equator
- 51.5°N
- at 0% along
- One lap of Earth
- 24.2%
- of 40,075 km
What the aircraft actually flies over
From London the path crosses France, then 629 km of open water, then Algeria, then Niger, then Nigeria, then Cameroon, then Gabon, then Congo, then the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then Angola, then Namibia, then South Africa.
The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 51.5°N, 0% 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.
CPT
Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa · Africa
34.0°S, 18.6°E
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.
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