Airline route from USA to Europe.

[10ClarionSt]

Does the main route for aircraft from the USA to Europe pass over Central England? There are always lots of vapour trails visible on a West to East heading, at high altitude. I would have thought that the main route would avoid the UK, either South or North of this country. Does anyone know? Thanks.

[sddsddean]

Every time I've flown to the USA (5 times now), I've flown out more or less North and gone out over the Western Isles of Scotland. When I've come back, I've crossed the southern half of Eire and either along the south coast or (more or less) down the M40.

[kempie]

This is not a comment on any particular route but the most direct route from *any part* of mainland US to *some part* of Europe can pass over the UK.

As an example, the shortest flightpath from New York City to Ankara, Turkey would approximately overfly Nottingham as well as Amsterdam, D�sseldorf, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest.

Chicago→Greece and LA→Italy maintains this central UK overflight but the path progressively rotates away from West-East to NW-SE.

However flights to Spain should bypass UK to the West and South and LA→Ankara would miss the UK by hundreds of miles to the North.

[buildersmate]

I think that routing is Great Circle (shortest distance) on the way out, but further south to benefit from jetstream winds on the way back.

[kempie]

N.B. it was not my intent to place Ankara in Europe!