Bahrain is one hour ahead SPAIN why does it takes 7 hours to fly there?

Answer 1

While it is correct that, strictly speaking, that time-zones do not exactly correlate to the distance between places. The flight from New York, USA to Lima, Peru is within the same time-zone and takes 8 hours. However, since time-zones are supposed to be 15 degrees of longitude-wide, it should be that two countries that are primarily separated by an east-west axis should be separated by a 2 or 2.5 hour flight, so this is a relevant question.

Regardless, there are a number of reasons why Spain and Bahrain are much further apart than their time-zones would indicate:

1. Bahrain is only one hour ahead of Spain in summer because Spain has daylight savings time and Bahrain does not. There are actually two time-zones between Spain and Bahrain, not one. Spain is in GMT +1 and Bahrain is in GMT +3.
   
2. However, Spain is actually in the incorrect time-zone for its longitude, it should be in GMT (UK time), not GMT +1 (German time). As a result there are actually three time-zone distances between Spain and Bahrain.
   
3. Planes need to deviate from a strict path in order to avoid Syria, Iraq, and other trouble-spots in the Middle East.
   

Answer 2

The difference in time zones has no impact on the length of time it takes to travel between two places. It is all down to the physical distance that is between two places.