Flight paths displayed on the seatback screens look like massive curves because mapping a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional flat screen heavily distorts the actual travel line.

A closer look

Flight paths displayed on the seatback screens look like massive curves because mapping a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional flat screen heavily distorts the actual travel line. Flat earthers completely lose their minds over this, but it is simply the most efficient route, known as a great circle trajectory, which saves airlines thousands of gallons of incredibly expensive jet fuel. You might think you are taking a bizarre detour over Greenland to get from New York to London, but the pilot is actually taking the shortest possible geographical line across the spherical planet. It is wild to think that we have access to this incredible satellite-tracked entertainment system, yet most passengers just use it to watch the same Marvel movie for the fourth time while aggressively reclining their seat. The real miracle of modern aviation isn't the complex mathematics of planetary navigation, but the fact that the tiny digital plane on the screen actually gets to the destination!