Why are my relatives in Germany flying over Iceland and Canada to get to Florida???

Question

Florida is South West from Germany...GreenLand is North West...isn't that the wrong direction? To planes really fly the quickest route to get to their destinations?

Answer 1

Its the shortest distance...flying straight across is the long way around.

To follow the curvature of the earth would add about an hour to the flight time.

Answer 2

some of the difference is in looking at a flat map compared to a globe. if you draw the shortest routs between two points on a flat map it is a curved line. it might also be that the plane is flying with the wind instead of against it.

Answer 3

The earth is a sphere.  It may he a shorter distance for a plane to fly towards the pole than to fly what appears to be a direct route.

Wind conditions may also be a factor.

Answer 4

If you look at the globe, take a string and run it from Germany to FL, and then go over the top of the Globe.  It could be the shortest direct route.  The other reason could be that there are jetways that allow the global traffic to be constantly monitored, and the routes from Europe to USA pass over Greenland and Canada.

Answer 5

It doesn't have anything to do with shortest distances. If it did, the way to go would be a straight line.

It doesn't have anything to do with the gulf stream.

It has to do with safety. If anything goes wrong, you would rather have a landing than to ditch (water landing). Therefore they take the shortest water distance possible. A few reasons for this:

1) Not all emergency landings mean a crash. Landing at an airport is much better than landing in water over something that would be an easy fix if you could just land.

2) A crash is almost certainly a fatal event for at least some of the passengers, and its better to alert emergency responders who can be on the scene sometimes even before the crash happens. They can also recover some human remains if it is a total loss event. This is harder to do at sea.

3) Investigators can put all the pieces of a plane back together if they can find them. This is easier done on land.

Answer 6

This route is what is known as a great circle route, and is the shortest distance between the two points. But flights across the Atlantic will usually fly slightly further north than the optimum route in order to be over land as much as possible, because it is safer to fly where it is possible to make an emergency landing.

Answer 7

that one is kinda hard to explain, but if you took a globe and flattened it out, making the center of your map Germany or Florida, and connected them with a line, you'll see that it will pass somewhat close to Iceland, and much closer to Canada. generally speaking, planes do fly the straightest route they can from one place to another, if only because it will take the least amount of time and fuel. i'm sure it may have to do with being in touch with air traffic control along the way that the route might not be exactly straight. someone once told me a long time ago that on transatlantic flights from the East Coast, that you are never more than 400 miles from any land, so that in less than an hour a plane could land somewhere in an emergency situation.