Santa

Do airliners fly over the north pole when flying between north america and europe/asia ?

(or the south pole when flying between south america and australia) It may be closer, but is the air too cold for the plane, or is it too dangerous to be that far from an airport (yes flying over the atlantic has the same danger, but it's only for a shorter period of time) Does a plane flying from LAX to Paris just go straight north and come into france from the north ?

Public Comments

1. Not that i know of. It depends on the airline's flight plan and i dont know if there are any airways going over the poles. Due to the curvature of the earth it takes less time & distance to travel north around like that to the south (your LAX example)
2. No they don`t as the North and South pole are both protected areas
3. When flying from Columbus, OH to Japan the airlines go up and over Alaska for a shorter route. So I would guess if they do not fly directly over the poles, they get very close.
4. To Europe: no, to Asia: sometimes. Like New York To Bejing: "Air China to Offer Beijing-New York Flight over North Pole"
5. no they dont...the earth is round and the fastest trip to europe is in an arc .....it looks as though it would fly across it.
6. Planes flying from the States to Europe via the Atlantic use a 'track system' of assigned tracks which is safer for planes to use on those routes. Some routes like New York-Tokyo or New -York-Beijing would fly over the North Pole if safe to do so.
7. Airlines fly as close as possible to a great circle route to reduce fuel costs to a minimum. If that path takes them over the N pole, then thats the way they go. Without a globe handy, its hard to visualize the shortest distance between various points in the USA and Europe or Asia. The air temperature at typical flight altitudes is about -50 anyway, so the colder ground temps dont make much difference. Since most of the destinations in the world are north of the equator, there are very few great circle air routes over the south pole or even anywhere over Antarctica..........