I flew to LA for a convention once. It was only tolerable because it was just over a month after 9/11, the plane was only about a quarter full and I had a window row of seats to myself, being able to get up and wandering around whenever I wanted.
Air NZ pulled out of Europe entirely in 2019. They are re-launching with LGW from the summer and that will be via LAX as previously was the case from LHR. Connections to the East Coast of Australia go via the Middle East, East Asia or West Australia.
It’s so counterintuitive, but I’d absolutely deal with it if they finally ran commercial flights direct from London to Auckland. It’s like the final frontier one of the few journeys that still can’t be done directly in a single flight.
In the same way, it is hugely counterintuitive that the longest straight-line journey you can (theoretically) take by sea starts on the coast of Pakistan near Karachi and ends on the Kamchatka peninsula in the far east of Russia...
Isn't it? When you look at a 2D map of the world, the idea seems preposterous. It's only when you see it on a globe, as you have shown, that you see it is true.
BA went out going across India , well away from Russia, back by the North Pole, which might be wind related.
Singapore Airlines threaded a needle near some very unpleasant airspaces there & back to Singapore, it was very turbulent. We had a rough ride a few months before they had a fatality.
Never thought about this before but now you mention it, I can see an intuitive route through to that conclusion: we’re on 0° longitude. Auckland is about 180°. It’s a fair bit closer to the equator than us, so yeah, we have to head over the top of the world to pass over the equator the other way.
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Singapore Airlines threaded a needle near some very unpleasant airspaces there & back to Singapore, it was very turbulent. We had a rough ride a few months before they had a fatality.
https://x.com/A16XJD/status/1876990986162700370
I've never flown that way before