LH400 distance and great-circle path
LH400 covers 6,189 km, or 3,845 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 185 by distance.
The plane leaves Frankfurt 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 FRA-JFK route appears on a tracker map.
Why LH400 block time differs from cruise time
The schedule allows 8.8 hours from gate to gate. That works out to about 707 km/h. A Boeing 747-8 cruises faster than that. The gap is taxi time, climbing, descending and holding.
Flying west, this route pushes against the wind. The trip back east is usually shorter, even though the distance is the same. See how high-altitude winds behave in our guide to turbulence and jet streams.
Can the Boeing 747-8 comfortably fly LH400?
Not at all. At roughly 43% of its range, this is an easy trip for a Boeing 747-8. The airline picked it for cabin size, not distance. The full numbers are on our aircraft page for the Boeing 747-8.
What to know about LH400
- Time change: you land 5 hours behind the time you left. That is enough to cause jet lag. Here is how pilots handle it.