A few lucky visitors probably arrived at their destination much sooner than planned. Long-distance driving can occasionally be difficult. First, there’s the anxiety of travelling through airports, hoping that nothing is lost and that your luggage gets there safely.
In addition to this, though, one problem that we still haven’t been able to resolve in our world of ever-improving technology is lengthy travel times.
However, a few fortunate vacationers flying on American Airlines managed to cut their flight duration by over an hour.
According to CNN, American Airlines flight 106 broke the sound barrier on Wednesday, November 1, 2023, as it travelled from New York’s JFK airport to London Heathrow. During the flight, the Boeing 777’s maximum speed was 778 miles per hour. Given that sound travels at approximately 767 miles per hour, the aeroplane was travelling at a very high speed.
However, get ready to be let down if you believe that this would be the standard for flights moving forward. The weather, notably the jet stream, is to blame for the higher speeds rather than advancements in engineering or design.
The meteorological office describes the jet stream as a “core of strong winds around five to seven miles above the Earth’s surface, blowing from west to east.”
This past October, there was a burst of extremely cool weather that aided in accelerating these winds. This was well known to scientists, and CNN meteorologist Sara Tonks discussed the ramifications. “The recent cold snap in the US has increased the temperature differential between the US (cold!) and the Atlantic Ocean (warm!),” she stated at the time.
“The jet stream is being driven by temperature differences, and this increase in the gradient is intensifying its speed.
