Looking at flights today DEN to LA, for giggles I looked at all airports.

DEN / LAX - 862 miles. I am familiar with LA and surrounding area and have spent a lot of time there, so I would imagine that SNA would be pretty close but a hair farther. Perfect, DEN / SNA - 846. Okay, I can see that I guess, even though SNA is farther south, I am not sure what happens when one flies in a straight line. DEN/BUR 850 miles. Okay, I can live with all three of those.

Then I see ONT...No way in hell can I accept that DEN/ONT is 891 miles. Anyone who has ever looked at a map can tell you that almost immediately, it is a geographic impossibility.

Question, how do they come up with the miles really are? Or is this some stupid programming error that again gets missed? I always assumed that it is straight line point to point, maybe they are taking intended flight path into account? Seriously I am at a loss here. Any thoughts?