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-   -   Polar route from ORD to NRT? (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileage-plus-pre-merger/112594-polar-route-ord-nrt.html)

amandatwisp Feb 16, 2004 2:16 pm

Polar route from ORD to NRT?
 
Hello! I am traveling from Chicago to Tokyo (ORD to NRT) in May via United Airlines, and I was wondering if anyone might know if that flight will take the polar route? I know United flies the polar route between Chicago and Hong Kong and Chicago and India now. Thanks!

richard Feb 16, 2004 2:18 pm


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by amandatwisp:
Hello! I am traveling from Chicago to Tokyo (ORD to NRT) in May via United Airlines, and I was wondering if anyone might know if that flight will take the polar route? I know United flies the polar route between Chicago and Hong Kong and Chicago and India now. Thanks!</font>
WElcome to FlyerTAlk! This post is very United specific. There are airline-specific forums and I am moving this to the United forum in FT Miles

--richard, moderator

transpac Feb 16, 2004 2:27 pm

You can go here

http://www.flytecomm.com/cgi-bin/trackflight

enter United Airlines 881 to see the current position and planned flight path.

Today it looks like like southern Alaska is about as far north as they will be going?

auggie doggie Feb 16, 2004 2:28 pm

UA actaully does not fly from Chicago to India. That was a pipe dream from one of the executives from a few years ago.

To see how an airline might fly a route, you might want to look at:

http://gc.kls2.com

The "Great Circle Mapper" is a cool site that shows you how an airline might fly from ORD-NRT. You'll notice that it's much less "polar" than ORD-HKG.

UNITED959 Feb 16, 2004 2:37 pm

I wouldn't get my hopes up about flying "polarly."

ORD-NRT pretty much follows the Nor Pac Ocean & land borders...up the coasts of Canada & Alaska, over the Bering Strait, down the Kamchatka (sp?) Peninsula, over the Kuril Islands, and on into Japan.

I don't think NRT is west enough to merit an efficient polar route.

GadgetFreak Feb 16, 2004 2:43 pm

Really depends on the exact flight and prevailing conditions. I do JFK-NRT a fair bit and last time it was sort of through the Yukon and Central Alaska. It has been far north of that on some occassions however. One time all the way to the North Slope region (we could see the lights in Point Barrow) and along the edge of the Arctic Ocean. We then crossed over and went into Siberia (not off the coast but well inland) and then actually seemed to be heading a bit east as we headed south to Japan. On my last trip I was discussing the route with the purser and she said she had been as far North as 600 miles south of the North Pole on that route. Really depends a lot. Likewise on the return. I came back through ORD last time and we were very far south, we had a huge tailwind, like 384 km/hr if I recall correctly, so we rode that. We didnt even get as far north as southern Alaska but came in to Canada a bit north of Vancouver. Other times from NRT-JFK we have been as far north as north of Fairbanks on the return.

[This message has been edited by GadgetFreak (edited Feb 16, 2004).]

Chapel Hill Guy Feb 16, 2004 2:58 pm

RE flying over the pole, my first flight ORD-HKG was awesome. It's essentially daylight/twilight the entire way and some of the barren scenery with fissures in the ice and desolete, snow-covered mountains peaking through the clouds left me speechless.

I know all you MMs have probably seen this so many times that it's ho-hum, but I'm looking forward to seeing it again in March.

UnitedSkies Feb 16, 2004 3:30 pm

The interesting thing is during the northern fall and spring, less so in winter on the ORD-HKG nonstop, it starts to get dark within 2 hours of departure, and just when you think it will be dark for the rest of the way, the sun seems to hang very low on or just below the horizon for a good portion of the flight just off the left side of the plane. This then changes as you start swinging southward over Siberia and the sun seems to rise in the west (on the right side of the plane now) until it starts setting right around the time you descend into HKG.

Quite a spectacular view. The return flight is less so, though because it basically follows a Pacific route over the northern part of the Pacific Ocean at or just south of Alaska to ride the jetstream.

------------------
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kv99 Feb 16, 2004 10:56 pm


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by auggie doggie:
UA actaully does not fly from Chicago to India. That was a pipe dream from one of the executives from a few years ago.
</font>
It wasn't a pipe dream.

It was scheduled to begin in Oct 2001 and would probably have gone on (for how long no one can know...) if it weren't for 9/11.

GadgetFreak Feb 16, 2004 11:13 pm


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by kv99:
It wasn't a pipe dream.

It was scheduled to begin in Oct 2001 and would probably have gone on (for how long no one can know...) if it weren't for 9/11.
</font>
Yep, and plot that sucker on a great circle route, some of the most fantastic scenery in the world. I would have probably flown it just to look out the window.

N227UA Feb 17, 2004 12:28 am

It doesn't fly on polar route, while ORD-PEK does.

ajax Feb 17, 2004 3:03 am


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by UnitedSkies:
The interesting thing is during the northern fall and spring, less so in winter on the ORD-HKG nonstop, it starts to get dark within 2 hours of departure, and just when you think it will be dark for the rest of the way, the sun seems to hang very low on or just below the horizon for a good portion of the flight just off the left side of the plane.</font>
One of the coolest things I've ever seen was a so-called "reverse sunset" when flying from LHR-LAX on NZ 1 in November. The sun set above Greenland about two hours after our 15:00 takeoff. After about an hour (as we started heading southward) it came back up! It set for the second time about two hours later.

UA_Flyer Feb 17, 2004 9:30 am

ORD-NRT-ORD does not go north enough. I flew IAD-NRT on ANA a couple times, and it follows almost the same path as ORD-NRT.

Does anyone know if SIN-LAX or the upcoming SIN-JFK on SQ go through Polar?

airlinemileswhore Feb 17, 2004 9:38 am


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by UA_Flyer:
ORD-NRT-ORD does not go north enough. I flew IAD-NRT on ANA a couple times, and it follows almost the same path as ORD-NRT.

Does anyone know if SIN-LAX or the upcoming SIN-JFK on SQ go through Polar?
</font>
the sin-jfk flight is a polar route. i have flown the ewr-hkg on CO and that is polar. the sin-lax is not polar AFAIK.

transpac Feb 17, 2004 10:03 am


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by UA_Flyer:
Does anyone know if SIN-LAX or the upcoming SIN-JFK on SQ go through Polar?</font>
A minor point but SQ will be flying direct, non-stop between SIN and EWR.

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