Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Shannon (County Clare), Ireland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Shannon Airport (SNN), Shannon (County Clare), Ireland would travel a Great Circle distance of 310 miles (or 499 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 Shannon 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):

• RAF Fairford is also the home of the Royal International Air Tattoo, an annual air display.
• 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.
• RAF Lyneham's position as the primary tactical transport base for the RAF was emphasised in February 1971 when Nos.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• In the early years of the Cold War the British and American governments reached an agreement under which elements of the USAF Strategic Air Command would be based in the UK.
• 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.
• KC-135 and KC-10 tankers deployed to Fairford supported Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya in 1986.

Facts about Shannon Airport (SNN):

• The closest airport to Shannon Airport (SNN) is Inisheer Aerodrome (INQ), which is located 35 miles (56 kilometers) NW of SNN.
• The furthest airport from Shannon Airport (SNN) is Ryan's Creek Aerodrome (SZS), which is nearly antipodal to Shannon Airport (meaning Shannon Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Ryan's Creek Aerodrome), and is located 12,015 miles (19,336 kilometers) away in Stewart Island, New Zealand.
• Because of Shannon Airport's relatively low elevation of 46 feet, planes can take off or land at Shannon 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.
• The first Air Services Agreement with the United States in 1945 only permitted flights to Shannon, and only permitted Irish airlines to serve Boston, Chicago, and New York.
• It has been hinted that a route to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol or Frankfurt Airport could commence in 2015.
• In addition to being known as "Shannon Airport", another name for SNN is "Aerfort na Sionainne".
• Shannon Airport (SNN) currently has only 1 runway.
• Shannon Airport handled 1,400,032 passengers last year.
• When World War II ended, the airport was ready to be used by the many new post-war commercial airlines of Europe and North America.
• Shannon Airport is one of Ireland's three primary airports, along with Dublin and Cork.
• The 1980s saw a number of new airlines arrive at Shannon.
• In 2011, passenger numbers at Shannon declined by 7.4% from 1,755,885, to 1,625,549.