A Norwegian Air Boeing 787 has set a new record for the fastest passage of a subsonic passenger jet airplane between New York City’s JFK and London’s Gatwick airports, completing the voyage in just 5 hours and 13 minutes.
Blasting the ordinary travel time of approximately seven and a half hours by over two hours, the Norwegian-owned Boeing 787 Dreamliner made the trip recording a top speed of 776 mph.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner departed from New York’s JFK airport at 11.44 a.m., local time, and arrived at London’s Gatwick airport at 9.57 p.m., GMT, according to reports.
The flight marks the fastest transit between the two points of any commercial passenger aircraft, according to Business Insider.
The captain of the Norwegian-owned Dreamliner aircraft, Harold van Dam remarked, “We were actually in the air for just over five hours and if it had not been for forecasted turbulence at lower altitude, we could have flown even faster.”
The aircraft arrived almost an hour earlier than its originally scheduled time.
“The 787 Dreamliner is a pleasure to fly and it’s a great feeling to know that we have set a new record in this aircraft,” said Captain van Dam, cited by Businessinsider.com.
Norwegian uses the same airframe for the company’s two daily flights between London and New York and, only one day previously, aircraft captain Pascal Niewold set the record broken the next day by co-worker van Dam, by flying from New York to London in 5 hours 20 minutes.