Nonstop flight route between Decatur, Illinois, United States and Zürich, Switzerland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Decatur Airport (DEC), Decatur, Illinois, United States and Zurich Airport (ZRH), Zürich, Switzerland would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,568 miles (or 7,351 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 Decatur Airport and Zurich 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 Decatur Airport and Zurich 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 Decatur Airport (DEC):

• The closest airport to Decatur Airport (DEC) is University of Illinois Willard Airport (CMI), which is located 34 miles (55 kilometers) ENE of DEC.
• The furthest airport from Decatur Airport (DEC) is Margaret River Airport (MGV), which is located 11,056 miles (17,793 kilometers) away in Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia.
• Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 1,232 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 672 in 2009 and 2,456 in 2010.
• Because of Decatur Airport's relatively low elevation of 682 feet, planes can take off or land at Decatur 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.
• Decatur Airport (DEC) has 3 runways.
• The Illinois Army National Guard has an Army Aviation Support Facility at the airport.

Facts about Zurich Airport (ZRH):

• The airport is owned by Flughafen Zürich AG, a company quoted on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
• Zurich Airport (ZRH) has 4 runways.
• Zurich Airport handled 24,865,138 passengers last year.
• The closest airport to Zurich Airport (ZRH) is Emmen Swiss Air Base (EML), which is located 28 miles (45 kilometers) SSW of ZRH.
• Zurich Airport railway station is located underneath the terminal.
• Zurich Airport, also known as Zurich Kloten Airport, is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines.
• Swiss International Air Lines has an office on the property of Zurich Airport and in Kloten, consisting of the Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie buildings.Swiss World Cargo has its head office in the Alpha and Bravo buildings.Swiss Private Aviation has its head office in the Swiss complex.Swiss European Air Lines and Swiss AviationTraining, subsidiaries of Swiss, are also headquartered on the airport property.
• The airport lost a lot of traffic when Swissair shut down its operations.
• The first flight abroad from Switzerland was on July 21, 1921, but the search for a location for a major airport wasn’t started until 1943 inside the Canton of Zürich.
• In addition to being known as "Zurich Airport", another name for ZRH is "Flughafen Zürich".
• The furthest airport from Zurich Airport (ZRH) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is nearly antipodal to Zurich Airport (meaning Zurich Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Chatham Islands), and is located 12,087 miles (19,453 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.