Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Queenstown, New Zealand:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Queenstown Airport (ZQN), Queenstown, New Zealand would travel a Great Circle distance of 11,805 miles (or 18,998 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 RAF Fairford and Queenstown 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 RAF Fairford and Queenstown 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 RAF Fairford (FFD):

• In 1950, as a result of the beginning of the Cold War, the airfield was transferred to the U.S.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• On 15 September 2009, it was announced that the USAF will withdraw all their uniformed staff from the station by September 2010, after which it will be run on a "care and maintenance" basis.

Facts about Queenstown Airport (ZQN):

• The furthest airport from Queenstown Airport (ZQN) is A Coruña Airport (LCG), which is nearly antipodal to Queenstown Airport (meaning Queenstown Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from A Coruña Airport), and is located 12,251 miles (19,716 kilometers) away in A Coruña, Spain.
• On 22 June 2010, a late-running Pacific Blue flight to Sydney took off from Queenstown.
• Queenstown Airport (ZQN) has 2 runways.
• In July 2011 newly installed runway lights were turned on for the first time.
• On 17 September 2013, the idea for a potential Auckland, Nelson and Queenstown air link was raised with Air New Zealand's chief executive.
• The closest airport to Queenstown Airport (ZQN) is Wanaka Airport (WKA), which is located 32 miles (52 kilometers) NE of ZQN.