Nonstop flight route between Santa Barbara, California, United States and Tawau, Sabah, Malaysia:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Santa Barbara Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, California, United States and Tawau Airport (TWU), Tawau, Sabah, Malaysia would travel a Great Circle distance of 7,821 miles (or 12,586 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 Santa Barbara Airport and Tawau 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 Santa Barbara Airport and Tawau 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 Santa Barbara Airport (SBA):

• Five airlines serve the Airport as of July 2013 with non-stop flights to Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma.
• The closest airport to Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) is Santa Ynez Airport (SQA), which is located only 18 miles (29 kilometers) NW of SBA.
• The furthest airport from Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) is Pierrefonds Airport (ZSE), which is located 11,487 miles (18,486 kilometers) away in Saint-Pierre, Réunion.
• Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) has 3 runways.
• With the outbreak of WWII the airport became MCAS Santa Barbara in 1942, an aviator training base for the U.S Marines.
• The United Airlines system timetable dated February 1, 1937 listed daily round trip service flown with a Douglas DC-3 twin prop aircraft on a routing of Los Angeles-Santa Barbara-San Francisco-Oakland.
• Because of Santa Barbara Airport's relatively low elevation of 10 feet, planes can take off or land at Santa Barbara 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.
• Santa Barbara Municipal Airport is a public airport 7 miles west of downtown Santa Barbara, California, United States.

Facts about Tawau Airport (TWU):

• Because of Tawau Airport's relatively low elevation of 57 feet, planes can take off or land at Tawau 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 furthest airport from Tawau Airport (TWU) is Coari Airport (CIZ), which is nearly antipodal to Tawau Airport (meaning Tawau Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Coari Airport), and is located 12,350 miles (19,875 kilometers) away in Coari, Amazonas, Brazil.
• The terminal is a one and a half stories building, which consists of two aerobridges, and its large apron can accommodate eight aircraft at one time.
• Tawau Airport handled 1,202,344 passengers last year.
• During the early days, Tawau airport was located on Jalan Utara, literally known as Northern road about 2 mi away from Tawau.
• At present, this airport is being expanded to accommodate medium wide-body aircraft with 2 aero bridges.
• Tawau Airport is located at Balung, 3 km further in from the Pan Borneo Highway.
• In addition to being known as "Tawau Airport", another name for TWU is "Lapangan Terbang Tawau".
• The closest airport to Tawau Airport (TWU) is Nunukan Airport (NNX), which is located 34 miles (54 kilometers) WSW of TWU.
• Tawau Airport (TWU) currently has only 1 runway.
• Tawau Airport is an airport located 15 nautical miles north east of Tawau, a town in the state of Sabah in Malaysia.
• In 2008, 768,967 passengers went through the airport with 10,546 aircraft movements.