The war in Ukraine is creating some ultra-long-haul long-haul headaches for airlines as they reconfigure flight paths that normally cross over Russian arctic territories for shortest distances.
Among the flights that’s had a severe shift is Cathay Pacific’s route from Hong Kong to New York JFK, which is seeing its 8,000-mile route extended by 2,254 miles to avoid closed airspace. While that’s more than 25% longer, favorable seasonal winds will only add about two hours to the nearly 18-hour flight.
On the other hand, it will be, for the moment, the world’s longest non-stop flight. The flight uses an A350-1000. Because of the pandemic and restriction in Hong Kong, the flight is running only four times a month, where it previously flew three times a day.
Another flight with a big bump is Japan Airlines’ flight from Tokyo to London, which now takes as much as 4-1/2 hours longer because of avoiding Russian airspace. Once east of Russia, the new flight path enters U.S. airspace and takes a polar route to London.
