The Breitling Orbiter's successful round-the-world flight requires a propitious meteorological window. 12^th January 1997, the roziere balloon took off from Switzerland and follow a southeasterly direction to try to ride the more powerful high-altitude winds located between the N30th and N40th parallels. The Breitling Orbiter had to rely on favorable jet-stream currents to complete its round-the-world journey in the projected fifteen days or so.

Found at the tropopause, around 10,000 km (over 6,000 miles) above the earth, these powerful currents should had propeled the balloon at speeds of over 200 k.p.h. (120 mph). The Breitling Orbiter should had thused overfly Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, the Gobi desert, Korea and Japan. It will then cross the Pacific to the California coast before travelling over the central United States and the Atlantic before reaching Europe.