In January 15th 2018, Norwegian long haul flight DY7014 departed JFK airport in New York bound for Gatwick airport, just outside London. Little did the passengers onboard know that they would be in one of the fastest commercial flights since the supersonic era.
The 787-9 Dreamliner with tail number G-CKHL would land at Gatwick after 5 hours and 13 minutes of flying. For comparison, the fastest subsonic flight before this one was in 2015 and operated by a Speedbird 777 that was flying a similar route and only took 3 minutes longer.
The fastest speed captured by Flightradar24 was 649 knots. Note that the Aircraft could have reached a higher speed that was not covered by Flightradar24
The flight eventually landed at Gatwick more than 50 minutes ahead of schedule.
Normally takes 6hrs for a JFK to LHR when I fly that with Virgin or BA for work, especially this time of year. Last march we picked upafast tail wind and had to do a lap or two around Ireland as we could arrive at Heathrow before 0600!
