Why is faster to fly east to west

The former is the stronger stream, causing much faster winds than the latter. Most airlines on transatlantic and transpacific routes use the polar stream while planning flight paths. Jet streams can be as strong as 80 to miles per hour, going all the way up to miles per hour.

These strong winds come with significant upsides and downsides for commercial air travel and could be changing soon. The first time jet streams came to use in commercial aviation was in on a flight from Tokyo to Honolulu.

Flying along jet streams cut the journey down from 18 hours to a mere Airlines quickly realized the value of jet streams and started implementing them while planning routes. Since the jet streams flow from the west to east, they make one leg of the journey much faster when flying with the stream and one slower against the stream.

Returning to the example from New York to London, we see flights may take even a slightly longer route to benefit from the jet stream. Even on shorter transcontinental flights between cities New York and Los Angeles, jet streams can impact the flight time by nearly an hour.

Everything on earth, not just the ground, but also the water and even the atmosphere , is rotating in the same direction, Forbes reported. Since planes in the sky are being pulled eastward with the earth, it takes more time to go west. Think of it kind of like walking against the wind. The jet stream is the real reason your flight time varies depending on the direction of your destination.

Jet streams are air currents that happen at very high altitudes, including those which planes frequently fly in. Email This Link. Share on Twitter.

Share on Pinterest. Share on LinkedIn. Most Read. Non-custodial mother of 4 Memphis children at center of Amber Alert in custody. Woman shoots year-old suspect in attempted carjacking. Latest News. Sunshine returns this afternoon, but a small shower chance returns Friday. Spencer's Forecast. Jet streams tend to form near the tropopause, a border layer between the troposphere the lowest section of the earth's atmosphere, where practically all of the planet's weather events take place and the stratosphere the second lowest section, where temperatures are stratified with cooler air at lower altitudes and warmer air at higher altitudes.

These winds blow hardest in winter —at times, faster than miles per hour —when the degree difference between cold and warm air is at its most dramatic. Instead of flat latitudinal lines, most jet streams form in rather meandering eastward waves across the planet. That means the fastest path between two destinations is not necessarily as the crow flies.