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SEA → HND

Seattle to Tokyo: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Seattle–Tacoma to Tokyo Haneda is 7,711 km of great circle — 4,792 mi — and an estimated 10h 05m in the air. It crosses from North America to Asia.

Great circle
7,711 km
4,792 mi
Estimated in the air
10h 05m
block time
Furthest from equator
54.4°N
at 36% along
One lap of Earth
19.2%
of 40,075 km
The Seattle to Tokyo route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Seattle the path crosses the United States, then 7,403 km of open water.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 54.4°N, 36% of the way along.

Flying the line that looks straight on a Mercator map — one constant compass bearing — would cover 8,223 km. That is 511 km further, about 7% more, and roughly 38m of extra flying.

From

SEA

Seattle–Tacoma

Seattle, United States · North America

47.4°N, 122.3°W

Flights to Seattle
To

HND

Tokyo Haneda

Tokyo, Japan · Asia

35.5°N, 139.8°E

Flights to Tokyo

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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