FlightBeat is a travel site people use to make real plans, so the numbers have to be right. This page lays out exactly where our information comes from and how we check it. If we ever fall short of what is written here, tell us and we will fix it.
Every flight time on this site, on the calculator and on every route page, comes from one single calculation that we wrote and test. It is not a guess and it is not scraped from somewhere else. It works out the real distance between two airports on the curve of the Earth, adds the time an aircraft spends climbing and descending, and factors in the jet stream, which is why an eastbound flight comes back shorter than the same trip heading west.
Because one verified core powers the whole site, the calculator and the route pages always agree. We keep a set of automated tests that fail if the numbers ever drift, so a mistake cannot quietly slip through. These are planning estimates, not operational flight plans, and we say so wherever they appear.
Our database of more than 11,000 airports, with their locations and time zones, is built from public and openly licensed data. We do not use paid feeds from flight-tracking companies, and we do not copy schedule or fare data we are not allowed to use. Free and public sources only.
When we write about earnings, mergers, or an airline shutting down, we hold every fact to a simple rule: if we cannot tie it to a credible source, it does not go in. In practice that means:
We never invent a statistic, a quote, an event, or a date. If a figure cannot be confirmed, we leave it out rather than guess, even when that makes a story less tidy. Reporting is dated to when it was written, and news moves, so numbers that were current then can change later.
We get things wrong sometimes, and when we do we want to know. If you spot an error, a number that looks off, or a source that no longer holds up, reach out through the site. We will look into it, fix what needs fixing, and update the page.
FlightBeat is free. When you book a flight, hotel, or eSIM through one of our links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That is how we keep the lights on. It does not buy anyone favorable coverage, and no airline or advertiser gets to shape what we write. Our opinions are our own.
The FlightBeat team
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