BA49 distance and great-circle path
BA49 covers 8,616 km, or 5,354 miles. That makes it a long-haul flight, a widebody route with a full night's flying time. Of the 439 routes we track, it ranks 129 by distance.
The plane leaves London heading north-west. 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 LHR-SFO route appears on a tracker map.
Why BA49 block time differs from cruise time
The schedule allows 11.0 hours from gate to gate. That works out to about 783 km/h. An Airbus A380 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 how high-altitude winds behave in our guide to turbulence and jet streams.
Can the Airbus A380 comfortably fly BA49?
Not really. It uses about 58% of the Airbus A380's range. That leaves room for a full load of passengers and bags. The full numbers are on our aircraft page for the Airbus A380.
What to know about BA49
- Time change: you land 7 hours behind the time you left. That is enough to cause jet lag. Here is how pilots handle it.