Round trip on the same plane: why the flight from Europe to the US is longer than the return
Anyone who has flown in the two directions over the Atlantic between a pair of cities in Europe and North America will [...]
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United States of America
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Anyone who has flown in the two directions Over the Atlantic between a pair of cities in Europe and North America., you will have noticed that the duration of the two flights is significantly different. To the extent that the flight from Europe to North America can get to be longer than the flight from North America to Europe by more than an hour.
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Staying in 'our house' one can compare the flight times of two ITA-operated routes to the east coast and west coast of the U.S. to understand what time gap we are talking about: the Rome-New York takes 9 hours and 40 minutes, while the New York-Rome takes 8 hours and 40 minutes; the Rome-Los Angeles takes 13 hours and 5 minutes while the Los-Angeles-Rome takes 11.45 minutes, which is one hour and 20 minutes less. And we are talking about two pairs of flights operated between the same cities and by the same type of airplane: the A330 in the first case and the A350 in the second case.
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What causes such a large gap in flight times? It can be thought of as the rotation of the Earth on its axis (which at the equator reaches a speed of about 1,600kmh). But it is not so. Because spinning is not only the planet, but also the atmosphere that surrounds it and within which the planes fly.
Instead, it has to do with the so-called jet currents ('jetstream' in English).. Huge 'rivers' of air moving, also due to Earth's rotation, from west to east in the northern hemisphere (ours) and from east to west in the southern hemisphere. These are high altitude currents, which can be hundreds of kilometers 'wide' and can affect various altitudes above sea level in different ways.
They have a wave-like 'motion' on the earth's surface, so they do not always 'travel' at the same latitude, but they 'rise' and 'fall'. They can vary in intensity depending on the time of year (seasons) and also depending on weather conditions.
A few weeks ago there were cases of aircraft that have crossed the Atlantic from the United States to Europe and cruising speeds very close to the 'wall' of sound, taking even less than five hours to connect New York and Boston to London, precisely because of very strong jet streams.
Flight plans are fine-tuned by airlines and crews also taking into account jet streams, e.g. Choosing a longer route between Europe and North America if it will allow him to avoid particularly intense jet streams, which would make the trip longer and also result in higher fuel consumption.
Conversely, between North America and Europe, flight plans will go right for the jet streams, which will facilitate the plane's advance due to so-called 'tailwinds'.
Since the jet streams have an undulating motion' from west to east and east to west (in the Southern Hemisphere), but not from north to south or vice versa, have little or no influence on air links that proceed in those directions, such as those between North and South America and between Europe and Africa.
Just to give a couple of examples, Lufthansa's Frankfurt-Johannesburg (LH 572), operated by Boeing 747-8 has a scheduled duration of 10 hours and 25 minutes; the return flight (LH 573) also operated by B747-8, of 10 hours and 35 minutes. American Airlines AA951 from New York JFK to São Paulo, operated by Boeing 777-200ER, takes 9 hours 40 minutes, the return from São Paulo (AA950), also by 777-200ER, 9 hours 50 minutes.