Sunday February 9, 2020
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Planes typically take more than six hours to fly from New York to London. Driven by storm “Sabine”, however, a British Airways Boeing 747 manages in under five hours – and thus beats an Airbus A350 by one minute.
In Western Europe, storm “Ciara” – called “Sabine” in Germany – messes up traffic. Flights fail, trains stop, rivers burst their banks. But in addition to all the damage, the hurricane also brings with it an unusual record: a British Airways aircraft set a new best time for crossing the Atlantic on Sunday night on a flight from New York to London – at least for flights under the speed of sound.
It took the Boeing 747 4 hours and 56 minutes to fly to the British capital. At 4:43 local time (5:43 CET) the flight had landed in London, 2 hours earlier than planned. The Atlantic crossings in this direction usually take more than 6 hours.
The route from the USA to Europe is anyway faster than the opposite direction due to the jet stream. Storm “Ciara” has given the plane from the New York airport JFK to Heathrow a good tailwind. According to CNN, the aircraft reached a top speed of 1287 kilometers per hour instead of the usual 900. According to the Flightradar24 portal, the top speed was even 1328 kilometers per hour.
According to media reports, the previous record was held by a Norwegian pilot who managed the flight from New York to London in January 2018 in five hours and 13 minutes. According to Flightradar24, British Airways’ Boeing was also one minute faster than Virgin’s Airbus A350, which reached London Heathrow shortly afterwards, and three minutes faster than another Virgin aircraft.
According to CNN, the aircraft exceeded the speed of sound, but did not break the sound barrier because it only reached the speed embedded in the surrounding airflow. In relative terms, the aircraft was slower than the speed of sound.
A spokesman for British Airways said that airline security is always more important than flight records. “But our well-trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers to London ahead of time.”
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