Air Travel Distance
Air travel distance is measured by the great circle distance formula. This formula uses a different geometry that is based on the sphere rather than geometry which is taught in schools and is based on flat surfaces and straight-line distances from one point to another.
| Because the Earth is spherical in nature, geodesics in spherical geometry replace straight lines and are circles on the sphere that have centers that are the same as the center of the sphere. A unique great circle exists between any two points on a sphere which are not in direct opposition to each other. The distance between the two points is the length of the unique great circle that exists between them. |  |
The actual calculation is somewhat complex in nature and uses a very intricate mathematical model of the earth, the same used by most modern GPS receivers of the day.
It seems that air travel distance is not an important factor in determining the price of a ticket as a round trip ticket from Boston to Japan can be priced less than a round trip ticket from Boston to San Francisco, clearly a shorter distance. One of the major factors in airline ticket pricing is supply and demand and airlines use rather sophisticated calculations for determining the price of a flight by trying to avoid empty seats and by maximizing the total revenue to the airline.
The price of fuel also appears to be an important factor in determining the price of an airline rather than air travel distance as the prices of tickets have risen several times in recent years due to the increasing price of fuel. The cost of jet fuel accounts for 30% of the airlines’ operating costs and every $1 increase cost in a barrel of crude oil costs the United States airlines $405 million to $430 million. The increase in rates is usually targeted at the business traveller who tends to book flights at the last minute and the rates can vary by route, time and day with weekday fares being lower than those for the weekend.
 |
Air travel distance does play a role in the size of the airplane used. Airline ticket prices are based on the class the passenger travels typically with three classes available: first class, business class and economy class. First class is has its own cabin with the most comfortable accommodations while business class is also of high quality and mostly purchased by business travellers. |
Leisure travellers tend to purchase economy class tickets which afford basic accommodations and are the least expensive.
Longer international and transcontinental flights tend to use three cabin planes with all three classes while flights requiring shorter distances use planes with two cabins and only Business and Economy class seats. Weather can sometimes play a role in the length of a flight rather than in its distance. Whereas with cars one can change the route to a destination based on weather conditions, typically an airline cannot because of predetermined routes designed for a flight. An airline will tend to delay any flight due to weather rather than change its travel route or distance.
