The British Airways recorded the fastest New York to London flight after riding on Storm Ciara winds. It reached London's Heathrow Airport 80 minutes ahead of schedule. The Boeing 747-436 crossed speeds of 800 mph as it rode a jet stream accelerated by Storm Ciara, which has left the United Kingdom battered. According to Flightradar24, an online flight-tracking service, the flight left JFK airport and arrived at Heathrow Airport in four hours and 56 minutes, a minute earlier to a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 flight.
Both the planes surpassed the previous record of Norwegian Air Shuttle, which reached London Gatwick from JFK airport in 5 hours and 13 minutes in January 2018. Aviation consultant and former BA pilot Alastair Rosenschein told BBC that the flight reached a “phenomenal speed”. BBC Weather reported that the jet stream reached speeds of 260 mph, relative to the air, the plane was travelling slower than 801mph. The report added that despite travelling faster than the speed of sound, the plane would not have broken the sonic barrier as it was held along by fast-moving air.
Modern passenger aeroplanes generally travel at about 85 per cent of the speed of sound, according to Rosenschein. British Airways was quoted by BBC as saying that they always prioritise safety over speed records but their “highly-trained” pilots made the “most of the conditions” to take flyers to their destination “well ahead of time”.
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