Have you ever seen the flight patterns of flights from Japan to the United States? They never go directly across the Pacific Ocean to get to, say, San Francisco. They take a curved pattern that brings them, if not over Canada, then near it.
PC: JAL
The same goes for fights between, for example, Los Angeles and Beijing – they take an upward curve route that hugs Canada, Alaska, Russia, etc., before reaching their destination in China.
So what’s up with that? Why don’t planes fly over the Pacific Ocean?
Well, of course, SOME planes fly over the Pacific. Lots of them, really. I mean, there’s no way you can get to Hawaii from anywhere else without flying over the ocean. Flights between the U.S. & Australia or New Zealand go directly over the Pacific waters, too. But if you’re more north and plan to fly somewhere that’s more north? It definitely looks like a roundabout way of getting there, doesn’t it?
In a nutshell, it all has to do with saving time, saving fuel, distance, safety, and a few other factors. Watch this:
Of course, the “rules” for this have changed somewhat since most planes aren’t flying over Russia or Ukraine right now. But until that all started, yeah…pretty interesting, huh?
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