AI173 distance and great-circle path
AI173 covers 12,382 km, or 7,694 miles. That makes it an ultra-long-haul flight, near the limit of what most twinjets can fly non-stop. Of the 439 routes we track, it ranks 21 by distance.
The plane leaves New Delhi heading north. On the map above, the line looks curved. That is normal. The shortest path over a round planet never looks straight on a flat screen. Our guide explains how the DEL-SFO route appears on a tracker map.
Why AI173 block time differs from cruise time
The schedule allows 16.0 hours from gate to gate. That works out to about 774 km/h. A Boeing 777-200LR cruises faster than that. The gap is taxi time, climbing, descending and holding.
Winds aloft shift the real flight time by up to an hour in either direction. See why long flights take odd-looking routes.
What to know about AI173
- Time change: you land 12 hours behind the time you left. That is enough to cause jet lag. Here is how pilots handle it.
- Crosses the date line: the calendar date changes while you are in the air.
- Flies far north: the real path runs much closer to the pole than a flat map suggests.