Yes, its the Jet Streams - there are high altitude winds that circle the earth. That's how baloons can circumnavigate. They are very fast and pretty much constant. Planes fly high because the air is thinner - about 10,000m, and so they are in the jet streams. If Concorde was still around you could do it in 3 hours though. It flew at 25,000m where the air is even thinner, almost on the edge of space.

Over the N Atlantic they are W->E

Dave L