AY5 distance and great-circle path
AY5 covers 6,607 km, or 4,105 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 132 by distance.
The plane leaves Helsinki 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 HEL–JFK route appears on a tracker map.
Why AY5 block time differs from cruise time
The schedule allows 8.4 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.
Flying west, this route pushes against the wind. The trip back east is usually shorter, even though the distance is the same. See why long flights take odd-looking routes.
Can the Airbus A350-900 comfortably fly AY5?
Not at all. At roughly 44% of its range, this is an easy trip for an Airbus A350-900. The airline picked it for cabin size, not distance. The full numbers are on our aircraft page for the Airbus A350-900.
What to know about AY5
- Time change: you land 7 hours behind the time you left. That is enough to cause jet lag. Here is how pilots handle it.
- Flies far north: the real path runs much closer to the pole than a flat map suggests.