Great circle distances between airports

The Pyxis Great Circle Mapper draws the shortest path between airports — the great circle route — and reports its distance and initial bearing. It's a fast, mobile-first alternative to the classic desktop mappers: type a route, read the numbers, share the map. Everything runs in your browser, with no login and nothing to install.

A great circle is the shortest path between two points on the surface of a sphere. Because the Earth is (very nearly) a sphere, the shortest distance between two airports follows a great circle — which is why long-haul routes look curved when drawn on a flat map. A flight from New York to Tokyo, for example, arcs up over the Arctic rather than running straight across on the projection.

How to use the mapper

• Type airport codes separated by dashes — JFK-LHR-DXB. Both IATA (3-letter, e.g. JFK) and ICAO (4-letter, e.g. KJFK) codes work.
• Add as many waypoints as you like. Each leg is drawn and measured separately, and the legs are summed into a total.
• Separate independent routes with a comma — SFO-NRT, LAX-SYD — to compare two city pairs on one map.
• Switch the readout between nautical miles, kilometres and statute miles at any time; the map and totals update instantly.
• Each leg shows its initial bearing (the heading you'd depart on) — note that the bearing changes continuously along a great circle.

Worked example: JFK to London Heathrow

The distance is computed with the haversine formula on a spherical Earth model, and the route line itself is interpolated point-by-point along the great circle so it bends realistically across the map — including a clean crossing of the antimeridian (the 180° line) on trans-Pacific routes.

Frequently asked questions

More Pyxis aviation tools

For planning and reference only. Always verify distances and routings against official sources before operational use.