While Storm Eowyn caused havoc for thousands of air passengers whose flights were cancelled today, there was some good news for those heading in from the US.
Powerful jet stream winds over the Atlantic have slashed journey times between the US and Britain by 45 minutes and are on course to smash flight records.
British Airways flight BA274 from Las Vegas to Heathrow reached near-record speeds of 814mph on Wednesday – more than 200mph faster than the average transatlantic speed, according to data from Flight Radar.
It was just shy of the record of 835mph, which was reached by a commercial aircraft from New York JFK to Lisbon in February last year.
The subsonic record flight time was set in 2020 on a New York to London service that lasted four hours and 56 minutes – and there could yet be a new record in the coming days.
The jet stream is a wind at about 30 to 40,000 feet that travels from west to east, meandering across the Atlantic with speeds of about 190 to 200 miles an hour.
Passengers at Edinburgh Airport today, where 74 departures and 72 arrivals have been axed
Airline companies will use this to pick up speed and save on fuel as they travel across the Atlantic, which is why it takes longer to fly to New York from London then vice versa.
BBC weather forecaster Simon King said the jet stream this week had been ‘supercharged’ with winds speeds in excess of 260mph off the coast of America.
Because of this, a number of flights coming into the capital from New York, which normally take around seven hours to complete, were landing ahead of schedule.
Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive at Royal Meteorological Society, said: ‘The jet stream in winter is often stronger leading to more storms forming, and its position is often closer to the UK so those developing systems are directed towards our shores.
‘The subsonic speed record currently stands at 835mph, so that record could well be broken in the coming hours.’
Passengers wait for updates at London Heathrow Airport today as some flights are cancelled
The fastest ever commercial transatlantic flight was in 1996 when a British Airways Concorde flew from New York JFK to Heathrow in two hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds.
It comes as millions of people in Britain were urged to stay today at home as 100mph winds pose a danger to life and cause travel disruption.
Rail services, flights and ferries have been axed, with rare red weather warnings in place on Friday in Scotland and Northern Ireland as Eowyn batters the country.
At least 334 flights axed across airports in Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow, affecting around 50,000 passengers, according to analysis of flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
Motorists in areas covered by red and amber weather warnings have been told to avoid travel ‘unless absolutely essential’.
This morning, a record-breaking wind speed of 114 mph was measured in Mace Head, Co Galway in Ireland, Met Eireann said.
