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LIS → GIG

Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Lisbon Humberto Delgado to Rio Galeão – Tom Jobim is 7,715 km of great circle — 4,794 mi — and an estimated 10h 05m in the air. It crosses from Europe to South America.

Great circle
7,715 km
4,794 mi
Estimated in the air
10h 05m
block time
Furthest from equator
38.8°N
at 0% along
One lap of Earth
19.3%
of 40,075 km
The Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Lisbon the path crosses 5,690 km of open water, then Brazil, then 482 km of open water, then Brazil.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 38.8°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.

From

LIS

Lisbon Humberto Delgado

Lisbon, Portugal · Europe

38.8°N, 9.1°W

To

GIG

Rio Galeão – Tom Jobim

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil · South America

22.8°S, 43.3°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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