Well as my next flight approaches, I’ve been monitoring VS075 and today it only took 8h 35m and 4357sm. However on 31st Oct it took 9h 36m and 4868sm but the the flight paths look very similar, what am I missing?
The longer flight path went farther north particularly around the entry to Canada, and probably faced lower winds (note lower groundspeeds).
Thanks for the info mduell. Just had look at the Google Earth maps and the speed really dropped off early at the end of the flight with the slower flight and longer path. Wonder if they had to drop speed to save fuel because of the longer distance travelled?
More likely they were just facing high headwinds that day. You generally don’t want to slow down for a headwind.