Asiana Club - ICN-BKK flight routing

We were on OZ741 on 30 April. I am a bit puzzled by the routing as shown on the flight display.

First we went south along Korea, and then turned right heading towards Tiawan. At Tiawan we diverted south and went round the island. It seemed we wanted to avoid the Tiawan land. Then we returned to our route, as if we had crossed Tiawan. It was still curved and kept away from China.

When you looked at the flight path on the map, it looked like one for a boat trying to avoid Chinese territorial waters, rather than one for an aircraft.

When we reached Vietnam - at Da Nang, we changed to a direct course, though we did take a little wiggle as we crossed the Laos border.

Maybe this is all familiar to regulars on this route, but as an occasional visitor to Asia, I found it interesting. Any explanations?

I can't really explain it too much, but it is all the same routing no matter ICN-HKG, NRT-HKG, even SFO/LAX-HKG, all have to fly east of China Mainland, then follow the west coast of Taiwan, into South China Sea. I believe it require permission from China in order to fly into their airspace like Russia. As far as I know, only EWR/JFK/ORD-HKG can fly into China airspace due to polar routing.

An interesting note while I fly UA ORD-HKG, when the plane is flying inside China, all I heard from ch.9 are mandarin, not english between pilots and centers. Would that be china centers cannot handle too much english as well ?

Carriers don't have to pay chinese government for using chinese airspace usage if they pass through Taiwan according to a KE pilot. He also told me that chinese government's fee is rip-off.

The routing you described is pretty standard, regardless of the carrier. I always thought that they flew around Taiwan though to avoid extreme air turbulence. I could definitely be wrong though as it was only my guess. Almost everytime I've flown over Taiwan there is a lot of turbulence. As for avoiding China, I'm sure that is because of high flyover fees. I've heard Russia is even more ridiculous, though that was several years ago so things may have changed since then.

When I flew that route (ICN-BKK) in Feb, we flew a similar routing, except we flew down the strait between Taiwan and China. Coming back from Hanoi in March, we also avoided most of Chinese airspace (which was different from the routing the previous year where we flew a more or less straight shot from Hanoi to Seoul over China). Flying north out of the US to Seoul, it more or less forces aircraft to travel over Russian airspace to save time and fuel.

Flying north out of the US to Seoul, it more or less forces aircraft to travel over Russian airspace to save time and fuel.

I just flew that route yesterday and we didn't get anywhere near Russian airspace that I saw. Other times we do. I suppose it all depends on the winds and if the time/fuel they save is enough to offset the expensive flyover charges.

I just flew that route yesterday and we didn't get anywhere near Russian airspace that I saw. Other times we do. I suppose it all depends on the winds and if the time/fuel they save is enough to offset the expensive flyover charges.

I think it is depends on which US to ICN route, Daawgon didn't particular mention which one, if it is JFK/ORD-ICN, more likely it would, SFO/LAX/SEA more likely it won't.