LONDON: While travel in UK and Europe is being severely disrupted by a large storm, for some passengers the weather system brought a welcome bonus.
A British Airways flight from New York to London on Sunday became the fastest subsonic flight between the two cities thanks to an almighty tail wind.
Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said the Boeing 747 made the journey in four hours 56 minutes - more than an hour quicker than the average flight time for the route.
Flight BA112 reached a top speed of almost 1,300 kph and was one minute faster than a Virgin Airbus A350 flight which landed shortly after. Another Virgin flight that landed half an hour later was just three minutes slower than the BA flight.
All three flights smashed the previous record held by Norwegian since 2018 of five hours and 13 minutes, according to Flightradar24.
The jets were able to make use of the 300 kph tale winds brought with storm Ciara. Flights in the opposite direction however, were taking more than two hours longer.
British Airways said it always prioritised safety over speed records, “but our highly trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time.”
Storm Ciara, which battered the UK and northern Europe with hurricane force winds on Sunday, led to scores of grounded flights and others being diverted.
