Great-Circle Flight Distance Calculator
Work out the great-circle distance between two airports or cities, the direction to fly, a rough flight time and the route’s furthest point north or south.
About this tool
Type a three-letter airport code such as LHR, MAN or EDI, a city name or coordinates. The airport list covers over 3,000 airports with scheduled flights, from the OurAirports database. The great circle is the shortest path between two points on a globe. On a flat map it looks curved, which is why flights from the UK to North America head north-west over Iceland or Greenland.
Distances are calculated on the WGS84 ellipsoid with Karney’s geodesic method. Nautical miles are what airlines and air traffic control use; one is 1,852 metres, roughly a minute of latitude. The flight time is a simple estimate (30 minutes plus cruising at about 830 km/h). Actual schedules vary with jet streams, air traffic routes and the aircraft. For the same reason, the distance on your boarding pass or frequent-flyer statement may differ slightly. The waypoints give the position at every tenth of the journey.
Airport data: OurAirports (public domain). City data: GeoNames, CC BY 4.0.