British Airways flight from New York to London this weekend clocked in at less than five hours, the fastest time by a subsonic jetliner for that particular trans-Atlantic route.
Flight 112, a Boeing 747, reached a top speed of 825 miles per hour over the North Atlantic, according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking platform. The flight left Kennedy International Airport at 6:47 p.m. on Saturday and arrived at Heathrow Airport at 4:43 a.m. on Sunday, a flight time of four hours and 56 minutes. The average flight time on that British Airways route during the past 30 days was six hours and 13 minutes, according to Flightradar24.
Two Virgin Atlantic flights from J.F.K. to Heathrow the same night also made it in five hours or less.
The speed of sound was about 767 m.p.h. but, because the flight had the help of a strong tail wind, it was not considered supersonic like the retired Concorde, said Jay Spenser, the co-author of “747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures From a Life in Aviation.”
