British Airways flight BA274 nearly broke the subsonic speed record by riding the jetstream that brought Storm Éowyn to the United Kingdom. The flight, which was operated by an Airbus A350, traveled from Las Vegas airport to Heathrow Airport, near London, much faster than expected.
Scientists describe the jetstream as “a fast, narrow current of air flowing from west to east” that’s stronger in the winter months. In simple terms, it’s a sky river of very fast winds. It’s not going to help you drive a moving truck from Los Angeles to New York in record time because it typically occurs about 30,000 feet above sea level. But it can help planes fly faster while using less fuel, and BA274’s crew took full advantage of it.
The A350 reached a top ground speed of 814 mph, which is over 200 mph faster than the typical speed of a transatlantic flight. It’s not a record, though—that honor belongs to a United Airlines flight from New York to Lisbon that reached 835 mph in 2024. The strong winds nonetheless allowed BA274 to fly from Las Vegas to London in under nine hours on January 21, 2025. It left 22 minutes late and landed 45 minutes early.
For context, a transatlantic flight normally travels at about 600 mph. BA274’s top speed of 814 mph exceeded that figure by 214 mph, which is exactly the top speed of a Porsche 918 Spyder. At that speed, you’re moving at about 400 yards per second, more than the length of a football field, which measures 360 feet from endzone to endzone. Sound travels at roughly 767 mph, but BA274 didn’t break the sound barrier because it wasn’t moving 767 mph faster than the air around it. It was riding the jetstream, which recently logged a top speed of about 250 mph.
While the jetstream is good news if you’re traveling to Europe in a rush, it will probably make your trip back longer and a little bumpy.
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