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LIM → MEX

Lima to Mexico City: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Jorge Chávez to Mexico City Benito Juárez is 4,245 km of great circle — 2,638 mi — and an estimated 5h 47m in the air. It crosses from South America to North America.

Great circle
4,245 km
2,638 mi
Estimated in the air
5h 47m
block time
Furthest from equator
19.4°N
at 100% along
One lap of Earth
10.6%
of 40,075 km
The Lima to Mexico City route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Lima the path crosses 3,640 km of open water, then Mexico.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 19.4°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

LIM

Jorge Chávez

Lima, Peru · South America

12.0°S, 77.1°W

Flights to Lima
To

MEX

Mexico City Benito Juárez

Mexico City, Mexico · North America

19.4°N, 99.1°W

Flights to Mexico City

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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