I’m certain the major airlines have this already worked out. But purely from a hypothetical and scientific standpoint. If you have two cities located more or less globally opposite one another, say New York and Jakarta for instance. Would there be any particular advantage in flying nonstop in one direction over the other? Flying east would have the jetstream give the plane a tailwind thus saving fuel. Flying west would conversely be opposite the earth’s rotation on its axis, theoretically making for an overall shorter flight.
Of course there are other factors to consider, flying east (From New York to Jakarta, west on the return trip) would allow much more land to choose from in case of an emergency landing, but might also have disadvantages with airspace restrictions over certain regions. Ultimately, if there is a major advantage in flying east or west, are there two major cities situated in such a way that nonstop travel is routinely made only bearing east or west?
The jetstream is a pretty big advantage. The Earth’s rotation isn’t, for reasons that should be obvious.
If i had to pull a reason out of my ass it might be this: I’d leave at night going West, and the whole 14-hour flight it’d be nighttime. (Or leave during the day, if you want to look at stuff.) (Or fly East if you want to compromise,)
There are no regulaly scheduled nonstop flights between points opposite each other on the earth. It’s not clear to me that any airliner has the range to do it at all. So for every flight that is actually flown, there is one shortest way to go, and that’s the way the flight is flown – at least to a good approximation.
It wasn’t immediately obvious to me, or presumably to the OP. For anyone else who may be puzzled, it’s because the Earth’s atmosphere (through which, of course the plane is flying) rotates as well.
I don’t have an answer to the OP, but Auckland, NZ and London, UK are almost opposite, and you can fly either way with Air New Zealand (West from London via Los Angeles, USA, or East via Singapore). I don’t know the distances or the times for each, but when I did it I flew via LA both ways (which I think took the same amount of time each way), because it was much cheaper and the timings suited me better.
I find I have less jetlag flying west, so I’d go west. For me this usuallt entails staying up for a bit longer (which happens without traveling as well) and then having a normal night sleep; while, going east means having a shorter night (or day) and screws my internal clock up entirely.
note, these experiences are based mainkly on flights between west coast US and europe.
All things being equal, most long-haul flights are either great circle or polarroutes. Most of the populated sections of Earth are above the Equator, so it often works out that flying north to the North Pole and then south to the destination is a shorter route than a purely east-west route.
Interestingly, the Singapore-Newark route mentioned above is flown as a 15,345 km great circle route, and the Newark to Singapore return is flown as a 16,600 km polar route. I can’t find any cite, but they probably take the longer route to catch the jet stream and save a lot of fuel by riding a strong tailwind.
I have spent a lot of time with this question over the years, myself. I’ve flown, several times from where I live, (London, Ontario, Canada [midway between Toronto and Detroit!]) to SE Asia.
I have pondered long and hard on the easiest, fastest, least stressful and cheapest routing. It is almost equidistant from London (Ont, CA) - Singapore, whether you go east or west.
I have done both, in fact. My first journey was west, through Seattle, Alaska, Hong Kong (overnight, back then, no direct flights!) and on to Singapore. The second journey we found a bargain on KLM but it went east to Amsterdam, on to Abu Dabi, then on to SE Asia. It took way longer and was way, way more jet lag inducing. We were totally bagged when we arrived.
We only went west after that, eventually hitting on a great ride. Connecting to a JAL flight out of Chicago, direct, non stop to Tokyo. Get put up, on the airline, overnight in a hotel, including meals and on to SE Asia the next day all rested and refreshed.
I would always go west, given the choice, much easier on the body for no reason I can explain.
not exactly… being a nitpicker i’ll try to explain it more accurately (but not necessarily more clearly).
the plane is moving with the earth prior to takeoff. upon taking off, the plane is still moving with the initial velocity of the earth. if you fly west, it’s “slowing down” the initial velocity and the earth is still spinning underneath you. if you fly east, you’re “outrotating” the earth trying to catch up to the other side. either way, the relative speed between the earth and the plane is the same because it’s “slowing down” and “speeding up” at the same rate - the rate of the plane. so even if the plane goes out into space where there is no atmosphere, it would have no bearing on the earth rotating underneath.
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the reason that space shuttles can orbit the earth in a couple of ours isn’t because of them being independent from the rotation of the earth. picture a cannon shooting a cannonball from the top of a mountain. it’s projectile motion forms a half-parabola downwards. imagine if that mountain extended upwards 80 miles. the parabola would miss the earth alltogether and gravity would hold it into some sort of orbit. not only will it orbit, the cannonball can pick up more speed (due to gravity) than if the mountain was only 5 miles (roughly 3500ft). so the height and lack of air resistance allows for a greater velocity, not the earth rotating.
going back to the OP
all and all it depends on where you’re going. the jetstream does make you go faster, but the route isn’t direct. if you weren’t constrained to the jet stream, you could fly a more direct path to where you want to go. even if we’re talking about polar opposites on earth it would depend on where you wanted to go. Tokyo/London is made for the jetstream but LA/Calcutta really has no bearing on air currents.