This question puzzles me... Because the Earth is round and is spinning, someone standing at the North Pole is actually moving 1000 mph slower than someone standing at the equator even though both are standing still relative to the Earth. This is because it takes a 24 hrs to do one revolution and one revolution is 24,000 miles more at the equator than at the North Pole ( 1ft / 24 hrs ~ 0 mph but 24,000 miles / 24 hrs = 1000 mph). So how can a passenger jet, which can't travel faster than roughly 600 mph, not counting the Concorde, that takes off from the North Pole, or South Pole, catch up and land on a runway that is traveling at 1000 mph?

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The air is moving as well and as the airplane gets in the atmosphere it gains speed by moving with the air it's in.It is all relative and you have to remember that the atmosphere is not stationary.

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There are a couple problems in your assumption. First you're assuming the plane flies in a straight line to the city. It can easily fly ahead of the city so that it gets there at the same time as the city.There is a problem with this as well. This would be assuming that there are no external forces on the plane. Air rotates with the earth as well due to gravity, inertia and other forces. Therefore as the plane flies south it would also pick up a velocity in the direction the earth is rotating.It is basically a difference between ideal physics, no wind resistance, not external forces other than gravity, and real life physics where all these things affect what's going on. Finally thre is a frame of reference issue here. You say a plane only flies about 600 mph. This is relative to how fast the earth is moving. Think of running on a treadmill. If the treadmill is moving at 15 mph and you're keeping up you feel like you're moving 15mph but to someone standing on the side you're not moving at all. The opposite is also true. Run with a moving walkway like at airports and you're moving faster than the walkway so you seem to be moving slightly faster than the people standing still on it. But to a person standing still off the walkway you're moving as fast as you're running plus the speed of the walkway.Hopefully this might clear up some of it.

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for scientific answer, see above regarding atmosphere and earth rotation.but that's boring. here's my take..it can be done, based on the fact that a person at the equator doesn't get smacked by a building when they jump straight up into the air because, as you say, things are moving at 1000mph.

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