British Airways Just Broke the Time Record for a Transatlantic Flight

How long do you think it takes to fly from North America to Europe? You would probably guess between six and eight hours, right? Well, that might typically be the case, but a British Airways flight from New York City to London shattered that time on February 8th.

British Airways flight 112 traveled from John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow across the pond in just 4 hours and 56 minutes, shattering the previous record for a trans-Atlantic crossing.

The previous record of 5 hours and 13 minutes was held by Norwegian Airlines, who set their time in January of 2018.

The British Airways Boeing 747 was able to cross the ocean so quickly due to a relatively rare meteorological phenomenon. Storm Ciara, which propelled wind speeds in the North Atlantic Jet Stream to over 200 miles per hour, greatly increased the speed with which the flight crossed the ocean.

The record-breaking flight reached nearly 825 miles per hour during its fast trip.

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Passengers on the flight landed at Heathrow Airport at 4:43 am local time, nearly two hours earlier than scheduled. Wouldn’t this have been a nice flight to take across the pond?