Flight Distance Calculator

Work out flight distance instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Flight Distance Calculator

The haversine formula gives great-circle distance on a sphere of mean radius 6371 km. Flight time adds about half an hour for taxi, climb and descent to the cruise time at roughly 850 km/h, ignoring wind — which on a transatlantic route can shift it by an hour.

Formula

Haversine

a = sin2(dLat/2) + cos(lat1)cos(lat2)sin2(dLon/2); d = 2R asin(sqrt(a))

Worked example

With the default values below, Flight Distance Calculator returns Great-circle distance of 5,540.02. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Origin latitude: 51.47 °
Origin longitude: -0.4543 °
Destination latitude: 40.6413 °
Destination longitude: -73.7781 °

Results

Great-circle distance: 5,540.02 km
Distance: 2,991.37 nm
Estimated flight time: 7.02 h
Initial bearing: 287.9 °

Step by step

1Values used
2Haversine
3Great-circle distance= 5,540.02 km
4Distance= 2,991.37 nm
5Estimated flight time= 7.02 h
6Initial bearing= 287.9 °

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the route on a map not a straight line?

Because a great circle projects as a curve on a Mercator map. The apparently longer polar route is genuinely shorter on the globe.

Why do return flights take different times?

The jet stream. Eastbound transatlantic flights ride a tailwind and can be an hour or more quicker than westbound.