Same distance, different time of flight: Are you also interested in why airplanes take longer to fly west?

Do you wonder why planes take longer to fly west than east?

Why planes do they fly west for a long time? While the return flight is shorter to the east? You may have noticed on longer return flights that the eastbound flight is slightly shorter than the westbound flight of the same distance. A flight from Europe to North America will thus take a good hour longer than a flight back to Europe.

Why do airplanes take longer to fly west?

This phenomenon can be explained by several different factors, all of which contribute to the fact that your westbound flight will be longer.

The Earth rotates from west to east, which means that points on the Earth's surface near the equator move faster due to this rotation. As you move away from the equator towards the pole, the speed of rotation decreases.

The atmosphere does not stand still; it also moves with the Earth's rotation. At certain altitudes there are strong, fast-moving air currents called jets. There are usually two main jet streams in each hemisphere: the polar jet stream and the subtropical jet stream.

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The polar jet stream flows from west to east at high speeds and generally marks the boundary between cold polar air and warmer air to the south. The subtropical jet also flows from west to east, but it is located at a higher altitude, further south, and is associated with the meeting of different air masses.

In a rotating system like Earth's, when moving at an angle to the axis of rotation, it acts on all the particles Coriolis force. It affects all movements in both the atmosphere and the oceans. It is perpendicular to the speed of movement and to the axis of rotation. In the northern hemisphere it works to the right, in the southern hemisphere to the left, it is greatest at the poles, and at the equator it is equal to zero. The same force drives winds eastward in the northern hemisphere and westward in the southern hemisphere.

So why do planes take longer to fly west:

When an airplane flies eastward (from west to east), it can take advantage of strong jets from west to east. This means that the aircraft can get a boost from the tailwind created by the high jet speed winds. As a result, it can cover the distance faster and reduce the flight time.

Conversely, when an airplane flies westward (from east to west), it has to contend with headwinds caused by the eastward movement of the jets. This opposes the aircraft's forward motion, making it slower and resulting in a longer flight time.

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