Nonstop flight route between Asau, Samoa and Anchorage, Alaska, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Asau Airport (AAU), Asau, Samoa and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, Alaska, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,307 miles (or 8,541 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the large distance between Asau Airport and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the route shown on this map most likely appears curved because of this reason.

Try it at home! Get a globe and tightly lay a string between Asau Airport and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. You'll see that it will travel the same route of the red line on this map!

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Asau Airport (AAU):

• The closest airport to Asau Airport (AAU) is Maota (Salelologa) Airport (MXS), which is located 30 miles (48 kilometers) ESE of AAU.
• In 2003, a cyclone swept past Samoa and most of the South Pacific.
• Samoa Air serves Asau daily.
• This airport is open daily for 12 hours a day.
• Since then, the airport terminal was rebuilt and a new paved runway was installed.
• The furthest airport from Asau Airport (AAU) is Maradi Airport (MFQ), which is nearly antipodal to Asau Airport (meaning Asau Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Maradi Airport), and is located 12,419 miles (19,987 kilometers) away in Maradi, Niger.

Facts about Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC):

• The closest airport to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) is Merrill Field (MRI), which is located only 6 miles (9 kilometers) ENE of ANC.
• In the 1990s, Alaska Airlines and Aeroflot operated service from Anchorage to several destinations in the Russian Far East, including Khabarovsk, Magadan, Petropavlovsk, Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
• A shuttle bus runs approximately every 15 minutes between the North and South terminals and the employee and long-term parking lots.
• As per Federal Aviation Administration records, the airport had 2,599,313 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 2,282,666 enplanements in 2009, and 2,342,310 in 2010.
• Because of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport's relatively low elevation of 152 feet, planes can take off or land at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport handled 4,976,557 passengers last year.
• The furthest airport from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) is Port Elizabeth International Airport (PLZ), which is located 10,548 miles (16,975 kilometers) away in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
• Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) has 3 runways.
• The FAA has forecast total operations for the year 2011 to be 261,375.
• Taxi queues are available in front of each terminal.
• Anchorage was a common stopover for passengers flying to East Asia until the 1980s because Chinese and Soviet airspace were off-limits and because the first generation of jets and widebody airliners did not have the range to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean.