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Quito to Galápagos: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Mariscal Sucre to Seymour Galapagos Ecological is 1,325 km of great circle — 823 mi — and an estimated 2h 09m in the air. Both ends are in South America.

Great circle
1,325 km
823 mi
Estimated in the air
2h 09m
block time
Furthest from equator
0.5°S
at 100% along
One lap of Earth
3.3%
of 40,075 km
The Quito to Galápagos route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Quito the path crosses Ecuador, then 1,106 km of open water.

The path stays within 0.5°S of the equator for its whole length, so the aircraft tracks almost due west the entire way.

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

UIO

Mariscal Sucre

Quito, Ecuador · South America

0.1°S, 78.4°W

To

GPS

Seymour Galapagos Ecological

Galápagos, Ecuador · South America

0.5°S, 90.3°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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