- Great circle
- 5,498 km
- 3,417 mi
- Estimated in the air
- 7h 20m
- block time
- Furthest from equator
- 51.5°N
- at 0% along
- One lap of Earth
- 13.7%
- of 40,075 km
What the aircraft actually flies over
From London the path crosses United Kingdom, then Belgium, then Germany, then Austria, then Hungary, then Romania, then 412 km of open water, then Turkey, then Iraq, then Iran.
The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 51.5°N, 0% of the way along.
Flying the line that looks straight on a Mercator map — one constant compass bearing — would cover 5,591 km. That is 92 km further, about 2% more, and roughly 7m of extra flying.
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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