Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Alta, Norway:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Alta Airport (ALF), Alta, Norway would travel a Great Circle distance of 1,497 miles (or 2,410 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 relatively short distance between RAF Fairford and Alta Airport, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about RAF Fairford (FFD):

• Due to RAF Fairford's location and infrastructure, the airfield is designated as a forward operating location for the US Air Force.
• The runway was completed in 1953, and served as a forward airbase for the first Convair B-36 Peacemaker aircraft from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas.
• On 14 January 2004, the 420th Air Base Group was established at RAF Fairford to improve the control of its geographically separated units that had been aligned beneath the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall.
• Due to the deteriorating airfield facilities and its unique NATO heavy bomber mission, RAF Fairford underwent a $100 million upgrade of its runway and fuel systems in the largest NATO funded airfield construction project within a NATO country since the end of the Cold War.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• The furthest airport from RAF Fairford (FFD) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,898 miles (19,148 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
• The 422nd ABG at RAF Croughton and the 420th Air Base Squadron are responsible for the day-to-day operations of RAF Fairford, ensuring that it has adequate resources.

Facts about Alta Airport (ALF):

• Alta Airport (ALF) currently has only 1 runway.
• The furthest airport from Alta Airport (ALF) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 10,502 miles (16,901 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• The airbus bus is operated by Boreal Transport and takes ten minutes to the town center.
• The closest airport to Alta Airport (ALF) is Lakselv Airport, Banak (LKL), which is located 38 miles (62 kilometers) E of ALF.
• SAS Commuter was established in 1988 and started operations in Northern Norway in May 1990, making Alta its central hub for Finnmark.
• Activity at Alta Airport peaked in the following years.
• A proposal by a consultant company, ordered by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in 2011, suggested that starting in 2013 the subsidized routes in Finnmark should follow a coastal route, leaving those to Kirkenes and the county capital of Vadsø as the only subsidized routes remaining at Alta.
• However, no progress was made with the airfield for over a decade.
• Because of Alta Airport's relatively low elevation of 10 feet, planes can take off or land at Alta 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.
• In addition to being known as "Alta Airport", another name for ALF is "Alta lufthavn".
• Alta Airport handled 353,051 passengers last year.