Source: Aero, no. 16, October 2001.
(Detailed PDF Map)

New York / Hong Kong Air Routes: Conventional and Polar

Technical and geopolitical changes have permitted the full usage of polar routes for commercial transportation. Longer range aircrafts such as the Boeing 747 and 777 and the Airbus A340 have a range exceeding 13,000 km. It is however with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War that marked the geopolitical possibility to use the arctic.

The older, more circuitous routings between Asia and North America, typified by R222, came at the cost of either a reduced payload or a refueling stop en route; commonly Anchorage. New polar routes, like Polar 2, permit fuller payloads and nonstop flights. The comparative difference between R222 and Polar 2 is about 2,000 km in favor of Polar 2, resulting in a reduced flight time of more than 2 hours, excluding the refueling stop.

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