THE WORLD, AIRPORT TO AIRPORT
Where would
you go next?
Find an airport. Look closer at its runways. Connect two places and explore the geometry of the journey.
Live aircraft tracking is temporarily unavailable. This explorer uses dated airport reference data and calculated routes.
Loading airport reference data…
Explore a route
CALCULATED GREAT-CIRCLE ROUTE
Choose your airports
—kilometres
—nautical miles
—initial true bearing
Calculated path only. It does not indicate a scheduled service, airspace clearance or actual flight track.
Destination airport
WHY DOES THE LINE CURVE?
The shortest path
isn’t always a straight line on a map.
A great circle is the shortest surface path between two points on a sphere. Flattening Earth onto a map distorts that path, so a long journey often looks curved.
A route is more than geometry.
Real flights also account for winds, weather, airspace restrictions, traffic and aircraft performance. This calculation does not predict travel time or confirm that an airline flies this route.
Runway numbers tell a direction story.
A runway numbered 09 generally points near magnetic east, about 90°. The opposite end is usually 27. Our route bearing uses true north, so it is a different reference.
Open data, clear boundaries.
Airport and runway reference data: OurAirports (public domain). Snapshot date will appear after loading.
Includes large and medium airports, plus small airports listed with scheduled service. Runway records marked closed are excluded; missing information stays labelled as unknown. Reference data can be outdated and is not suitable for operational flight planning.
Distances use a spherical Earth model with a mean radius of 6,371.0088 km. The line is a calculated shortest surface path, not a real flight. The map cannot accurately display the area very near the poles.
Download the airport reference snapshot (JSON)