CA173 distance and great-circle path
CA173 covers 8,963 km, or 5,569 miles. That makes it a long-haul flight, a widebody route with a full night's flying time. Of the 255 routes we track, it ranks 93 by distance.
The plane leaves Beijing heading south-east. 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 PEK–SYD route appears on a tracker map.
Why CA173 block time differs from cruise time
The schedule allows 11.4 hours from gate to gate. That works out to about 785 km/h. An Airbus A350-900 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 A350-900 comfortably fly CA173?
Not really. It uses about 60% of the Airbus A350-900's range. That leaves room for a full load of passengers and bags. The full numbers are on our aircraft page for the Airbus A350-900.
What to know about CA173
- Time change: you land 2 hours ahead of the time you left.
- Crosses the equator: you swap seasons between takeoff and landing.