Effect of Seasonal Changes of the Northern Polar Jetstream on Eastward Transatlantic Flight Times
Advisor: Kavita Sharma
Climate change is doing more than just making the world hotter. It affects weather patterns such as the Northern Polar Jetstream, which is used by trans-Atlantic flights to increase efficiency. It is my project to research the possible effect of the seasonal changes of the Northern Polar Jetstream on the flight efficiency of flights from the JFK airport in New York to the London Heathrow airport in London. I hypothesize that data may show a seasonal shift between speeds at which the airplane approaches the Northern Polar Jetstream, which is important, as that shows that climate change will have a massive impact on the overall efficiency of transatlantic flights.
Project Blog
Post 1: Introduction
Welcome! My Senior Project topic focuses on one of the possible impacts of climate change—more specifically, how shifts in the Northern Polar Jetstream impact transatlantic flights from JFK to LHR on the Boeing 777-200.
What brought me to my project was mainly my passion for planes, but also a passion for sustainability. As I am an aspiring pilot, and beyond that, a plane enthusiast, I am eager to learn all there is about planes and their routes, especially one as common as the JFK to LHR route. I also happen to be very passionate about worldly events, such as climate change. I found that the relationship between climate change and the efficiency of this specific route happened to be more intertwined than I had previously thought, and hence, the idea for this Senior Project was born. Furthermore, I know that one of the pillars of an airline's goals is efficiency, which the speed and location of the Northern Polar Jetstream will affect. Overall, I hope to achieve a positive outcome regarding my research about the relationship between the Northern Polar Jetstream and the effeciency of the flight from JFK to LHR on the 777-200.
Week 1: First Research Steps
Welcome once more!
My Senior Project progress this week has been less than ideal, unfortunately, but that by itself can be a learning experience. I reached out to a possible connection for an internship and looked into George Mason's Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (CATSR), which does research very closely related to the research I will do for my Senior Project.
Though my efforts this week were divided into an array of non-Senior Project related tasks, I did focus some time on researching the tactics that air traffic controllers use for planning routes. This information will greatly assist me in determining the various variables influencing a flight's trajectory when approaching the Northern Polar Jetstream.
I also delved deep into the specifics and mechanics of the Boeing 777-200 this week. I believe it is vital to know the various details of the aircraft I am studying, as this may also have implications for flight paths and flight times.
My goals for the following weeks involve applying myself directly and fully to my research, and I believe the first step to achieving a comprehensive research experience is understanding the tools I will be using to compile my data. In my case, I will be setting up a spreadsheet to hold the flight data that I will be running statistical analysis on.
Week 2: Data Sources and Factors Impacting Flight Times
Greetings, everyone and welcome back to my blog!
This week I have extended my research more. I perused multiple websites, like flightaware.com and flightradar24.com to determine the best method for finding flights on the Boeing 777-200 from JFK in New York City to LHR in London. I found the most success with FlightAware, as their sorting features are far more conducive to data collection.
Fun fact, did you know that John F. Kennedy international airport is used by N.A.S.A and the army? Heathrow, on the other hand, was only requisitioned by the Royal Air Force during World War 2, and is not currently in use for important government things. Furthermore, did you know that the number and direction of runways that an airport possess can affect flight times? JFK has four, but Heathrow, despite being one of the busiest airports in the world, only has two. This means that direct flight times will be affected. That’s one of the reasons why I am choosing to use the speed at which the plane enters a certain longitudinal line, as opposed to merely looking at flight time.
Works Cited:
FlightAware. FlightAware. https://flightaware.com. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.
Flightradar24. Flightradar24. https://www.flightradar24.com. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.
Week 5: Welcome Back!
It's been a while since I have surfaced on my blog. Unfortunately, this is because I was dealing with surgery recovery and such over the last multiple weeks. As such, I was not able to produce a blog for the last few weeks.
Fortunately, this week has been more productive than the last few. I spoke with my Senior Project advisor, who gave me the very good idea of finding a pilot to interview. I've located a few viable options of pilots who may be able to converse with me. In the extremely rare case that they happen to fly the Boeing 777-200, I plan to ask them what makes that plane specifically special, compared to other planes in existence. The one drawback to this question is that pilots don't exactly have a wide variety of planes they know how to fly, so it may be hard to draw an anecdotal comparison. In the very likely case that the pilot is not intimately familiar with the Boeing 777-200, I will formulate and ask them questions about how weather patterns in general affect flight conditions—be that visibility, or a difficult takeoff/landing, or issues with lift.
Furthermore, I have become more motivated as of late to add more data points to my spreadsheet. This will be vital to the whole of my research project. I hope I have enough data points at the end of my journey to be able to reasonably come to a conclusion.
I'll see you next week!