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Fortunate Chris. He writes: “I’m travelling to Thailand with Thai Airways for an island-hopping journey over Christmas.” I’ve been fortunate sufficient to spend Christmas in Thailand, and it’s a pleasure in all respects.
Nonetheless, Chris has a priority: “I’ve flown to the far east a number of occasions earlier than however earlier than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think about that the journey might be reasonably longer than typical provided that no flights are actually allowed to overfly both Russia or Ukraine. How lengthy will the flights from London Heathrow to Bangkok be this time?”
Longer than I beforehand loved, that’s for certain. Pilots not often fly the exact direct observe between two airports, resulting from components equivalent to wind course and needing to adjust to established air-traffic management corridors. However the “nice circle” route is a helpful start line. It’s the shortest distance from A to B on the floor of the earth. Within the case of Heathrow to Bangkok, it’s 5,958 miles.
The Thai capital is nicely south of London, however probably the most direct route between Heathrow and Bangkok truly begins by heading barely north of east. It parallels the Baltic coast of Germany and Poland, then traverses Belarus at its widest level from west to east and begins to cross southern Russia. Seven hundred miles later, the flightpath enters Kazakh skies for a few hours, adopted by western China.
The opening up of the skies over Russia and China within the late Nineteen Eighties reworked aviation between the UK and Asia by chopping many lots of of miles from the present routes. Along with improved plane expertise, it allowed nonstop flights equivalent to London-Bangkok for the primary time.
Till the Kremlin determined to invade Ukraine earlier this 12 months, such overflights had develop into routine. Russia extracted massive sums in air-navigation fees, which airways have been ready to pay so as to save gas and cut back journey occasions. Faster journeys spell happier passengers and extra environment friendly use of plane and crew.
The skies over Ukraine, too, have been very busy with east-west overflights – tragically, MH17 was shot down over rebel-held japanese Ukraine in 2014 with the lack of 298 lives whereas on a routine Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight. Unsurprisingly, when Russia invaded its southern neighbour in February this 12 months, airspace was instantly closed over Ukraine on security grounds. Russia shut its skies to most airways – which have been, in any case, giving the world’s largest nation a large berth.
Consequently, a lot of the air visitors between Europe and southeast Asia is funnelled right into a slim hall over the Black Sea and northern Turkey, nicely south of the Crimea. What with some often-tricky pathfinding over Iraq or Iran, the journey is often 500 miles additional than the direct observe. At regular cruising velocity, that equates to nearly an hour of additional flying – or, if winds are uncooperative, even longer.
For Chris’s flight, the scheduled time is at the moment 11 hours 25 minutes – from pushing again at Heathrow to arriving on the stand at Bangkok. The airline will do all it will possibly to succeed in the Thai capital as quickly as potential, however passengers should be ready to spend a while ready on the bottom for permission to depart.
The excessive demand for flightpaths within the air lanes of southeast Europe usually causes delays. Final month my flight from Heathrow to Singapore was held on the bottom for half an hour ready for a time slot assigned by Eurocontrol in Brussels to cross the Balkans.
Lastly, I concern Chris’s journey again will really feel disagreeably lengthy. On the finish of a vacation everybody merely desires to get residence as quickly as potential. However the pilots might be battling in opposition to the jet stream all the best way to London. The excessive altitude breeze that accelerated your progress east will impede progress, and with restricted choices accessible the captain might determine to take a fair longer path to dodge the worst of the headwinds. However the annoyance of the journey residence will fade a lot faster than the reminiscences of Christmas in Thailand.
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