Transatlantic flight

A transatlantic flight (TATL) is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, South America, or vice versa. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, airships, balloons and other aircraft. The distance of contemporary flights varies between 3,000km (East Canada to Ireland) to 15,000km (New York to Singapore).

Early aircraft engines had neither the reliability nor the power to lift the required fuel to support transatlantic flight. There were difficulties navigating over the featureless expanse of water for thousands of kilometres, and the weather, especially in the North Atlantic, is unpredictable. Since the middle of the 20th century, however, transatlantic flight has become routine, for commercial, military, diplomatic, and other purposes. Journey times between North America and Europe have reduced from several days by ship to several hours by jet airliner.

The modern commercial market is particularly strong on routes between North America and the larger European economies, including 3 million annual passengers between the global cities of New York and London. Growing demand for transatlantic flights in the post-war era inspired the Concorde supersonic airliner which served transatlantic routes from the 1970s to the 2000s, in under 3 hours.