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Distance between Chennai and San Francisco

Flying non-stop from Chennai to San Francisco

How far is San Francisco from Chennai? Here's the quick answer if you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line.

Flight distance: 8,637 miles or 13900 km

Flight time: 17 hours, 46 minutes


Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or "as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterative Vincenty formula. For a long distance, this appears as a curve on the map, and this is often the route that commercial airlines will take so it's a good estimate of the frequent flyer miles you'll accumulate as well.

This is a fairly long flight, so unless you have a Gulfstream G650 or your own Boeing or Airbus, you might be booking a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need to include how many minutes to get to your local airport, wait for security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the other airport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takes into account all these factors to get a more accurate estimate of your actual flight time.


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Chennai to San Francisco airports and flights

In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a private plane and just wanted to know the time in the air from city to city. But for most of us, we're going to be flying on a commercial airline (whether it's first class or coach). So that means we really need to account for all the extra travel time getting to the airport, waiting for our flight, and making it to the destination.

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we've put together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventually you'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airports and flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected to give you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Chennai International Airport (MAA)

Arrival airport: San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to and from the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 32 minutes

Getting to your destination: 33 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from MAA connecting through HKG and arriving at SFO flying on Cathay Pacific Airways. We can figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, time to taxi on the runways, and an average layover time of about 2 hours.

Initial flight time: 5 hours, 7 minutes

Connecting airport: Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)

Connection flight time: 14 hours, 21 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Chennai to San Francisco including time spent getting to and from the airports, roughly 2 hours at the departure airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, plus the connecting flight with a 2-hour layover.

Total travel time: 25 hours


To see the details on this flight plan, including recommended airports, airline, and route, check out the flight planner:





Plan a trip to San Francisco

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to San Francisco, California. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in San Francisco, or find out how many days in San Francisco to visit. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Top of the Mark. A great place to eat might be Ike's Place. Trippy members can suggest things to do in San Francisco like Golden Gate Bridge. Check out some of the questions people have asked about San Francisco like Best seafood restaurant in S.F.?. Click the button below to explore San Francisco in detail.





How far is it the other way?

The distance is the same either way if you're flying a straight line. But for a real trip, there can be plenty of differences so go ahead and check the reverse directions to get the distance from San Francisco to Chennai, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

If you happen to know Chennai, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about Chennai!





At a Glance
without making any stops
flight distance is 8,637 miles
flight time of 17 hours, 46 minutes
San Francisco is 12:30 hours behind Chennai
19 Chennai travel answers
655 San Francisco travel answers







   
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