Indisputably, airplanes are the fastest means of transportation. It is the means of transportation that provides the fastest way to reach the desired destination. But do planes fly faster from east to west or from west to east? Or is there a speed difference between these two? Have you ever thought about it?

We give you the answer. Planes fly faster when they travel from west to east. Okay but why?

Reminding our world and the atmosphere that rotates with it, let's say this: Even if planes do not apply any force, they rotate with the Earth.

Airplanes use air along with fuel to power their engines. This incoming air, along with the fuel, turns the engines, and the wings also interact with the air, allowing the plane to glide. There are very strong wind currents on our planet that blow at intervals of 10 to 30 km from the earth. These winds, called jet currents, blow at speeds of 100 to 400 km. This current, which cannot be felt from the ground, is at the altitude where the planes are flying and causes the planes to go faster or slower according to the direction they are going.

If the Earth were not rotating, the winds would only occur in the north and south directions, blowing between the equator and the poles. As the Earth rotates, air currents shift eastward in the northern hemisphere and westward in the southern hemisphere. We know that each region rotates at different speeds as a result of the Earth's being in a spherical structure that is flattened from the poles and bulging from the equator. Because of these different velocities, jet streams also move in a meandering fashion.

As for the effect of jet streams on airplanes, airplanes will go faster with the effect of the wind when they are going from west to east, and they will slow down more because they will go against the wind when they go east to west.