This is what a traceroute from a Norwegian Airlines airplane looks like. I grapped it flying from Nice to Copenhagen on the 22nd of April 2013.

console.log

watson% traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 173.194.70.139
traceroute to google.com (173.194.70.139), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.33.1 (192.168.33.1)  1.203 ms  1.333 ms  0.859 ms
 2  * * *
 3  * * *
 4  * * *
 5  192.168.14.106 (192.168.14.106)  3277.827 ms  2498.515 ms  1261.000 ms
 6  192.168.14.102 (192.168.14.102)  833.789 ms  1879.912 ms  3759.086 ms
 7  2.239.214.82.in-addr.arpa (82.214.239.2)  2454.781 ms  1959.662 ms  1167.737 ms
 8  cr-01-ge0-8.dw.direcpceu.com (62.128.191.190)  835.708 ms  3542.380 ms *
 9  pr-01-ge0-1.dw.direcpceu.com (62.128.191.250)  2605.413 ms  614.533 ms  3265.630 ms
10  pr-02-ge0-1.dw.direcpceu.com (62.128.191.251)  1059.925 ms  2039.468 ms  2773.018 ms
11  pos-2-1-a2.f.core.de.ignite.net (62.134.2.93)  681.008 ms *  2101.989 ms
12  166-49-172-40.eu.bt.net (166.49.172.40)  1879.987 ms  1769.718 ms  2744.788 ms
13  166-49-172-45.eu.bt.net (166.49.172.45)  2480.743 ms  1839.784 ms  847.202 ms
14  72.14.198.237 (72.14.198.237)  678.377 ms  1608.671 ms *
15  * 209.85.241.110 (209.85.241.110)  3154.401 ms  4386.226 ms
16  72.14.236.20 (72.14.236.20)  3551.008 ms
    72.14.239.60 (72.14.239.60)  4053.703 ms
    72.14.239.62 (72.14.239.62)  1670.422 ms
17  209.85.254.112 (209.85.254.112)  4382.814 ms  2407.241 ms
    209.85.254.118 (209.85.254.118)  2733.573 ms
18  * * *
19  fa-in-f139.1e100.net (173.194.70.139)  1939.508 ms  1639.560 ms  1836.709 ms

And here's a terrestrial traceroute for comparison. Lots of room for improvement, eh?

$ traceroute google.com
traceroute: Warning: google.com has multiple addresses; using 173.194.43.2
traceroute to google.com (173.194.43.2), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 clearspot (192.168.1.1) 3.379 ms 2.448 ms 2.456 ms
2 * * *
3 10.42.21.213 (10.42.21.213) 138.805 ms 560.215 ms 129.561 ms
4 66.233.172.161 (66.233.172.161) 143.093 ms 115.853 ms 450.203 ms
5 66.233.172.130 (66.233.172.130) 69.710 ms 134.952 ms 349.197 ms
6 66.233.172.245 (66.233.172.245) 274.528 ms 274.496 ms 134.483 ms
7 72.14.214.42 (72.14.214.42) 436.612 ms 326.371 ms 66.048 ms
8 72.14.239.46 (72.14.239.46) 205.078 ms 142.291 ms 336.690 ms
9 72.14.237.252 (72.14.237.252) 128.568 ms 142.204 ms 144.992 ms
10 lga15s34-in-f2.1e100.net (173.194.43.2) 205.133 ms 143.704 ms 89.577 ms

It seems not all devices along the way have a high ICMP traffic response priority, like most embedded devices. So don't assume too much about the ping times.

These planes are often equipped with air-to-satellite-to-ground radio equipment (yup, into outer space), the signal source (you) travels at a high speed too. Both factors (length of path, speed) combined with atmospheric disturbances make it very neat to have a roundtrip time of under 2 seconds.

Also, you may assume that these flights carry a number of cache mechanisms to cache images and webpages, so most of your page requests (images are especially heavy) may not be delayed at all.

I am not able to undersand the stats..please will it be possible for anyone what its about..?

@abhilashbhati - rather than stats, each line is the I.P. address (or host name and I.P.) of an Internet router that the ping had to go through in order to make it to its destination.

what is line 10, the .arpa domain supposed to mean and why it is there?

@payload .arpa is a top level domain used for infrastructure purposes, in this case to show the reverse DNS lookup for the IP 82.214.239.2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.arpa

@payload - I was wondering the same thing.

Also, check out the Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5594196

The only way to have lower latency would be to use a network of ground stations, such as what Aircell (GoGo brand in the US) does. They have ~400 AT&T cell sites they have equipment on, and form large cells for aircraft to use. This will, of course, not work for flights that need to cross large bodies of water.

Did it vary significantly throughout the flight? Someone else did the same thing last year with better (although certainly not great) results: http://pastebin.com/kHmwA20i

What about tcptraceroute?

What benefit does tcptraceroute have over MTR in this case?

In 2019 Norwegian is doing something cleaver with outgoing traceroutes (also an European flight):

$ traceroute google.com
traceroute to google.com (172.217.22.14), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  fra16s14-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.22.14)  1487.690 ms * *

The other way it looks like this (traceroute starts in Amsterdam):

traceroute to 82.214.239.4 (82.214.239.4), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  gw92-core.3d12.high5.nl (46.23.92.1)  0.67 ms  0.311 ms  0.294 ms
 2  high5-new.xs4all.net (194.109.11.97)  0.337 ms  0.37 ms  0.504 ms
 3  0.ae10.xr4.1d12.xs4all.net (194.109.5.57)  0.567 ms  0.672 ms  0.5 ms
 4  asd2-rou-1043.NL.eurorings.net (134.222.93.144)  0.647 ms  0.867 ms  0.504 ms
 5  ae9.edge3.Amsterdam1.level3.net (213.244.164.205)  0.932 ms  0.922 ms  1.103 ms
 6  ae-2-3210.edge4.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.163.110)  7.289 ms *  7.318 ms
 7  hughes-netw.edge4.frankfurt1.level3.net (62.67.36.22)  7.267 ms  7.48 ms  7.236 ms
 8  62-128-190-161.direcpceu.com (62.128.190.161)  7.319 ms  7.896 ms  8.553 ms
 9  * 62-128-190-177.direcpceu.com (62.128.190.177)  10.771 ms  10.018 ms
10  62-128-190-198.direcpceu.com (62.128.190.198)  242.922 ms *  10.159 ms
11  * * *
12  * * *
^C