Seems the great circle is north of NTL (Newcastle) and south of OOL (Gold Coast). Really surprised you'd go south as Hobart, but I imagine that is where the headwinds are the calmest at times.

Having flown MEL-PER countless times, it would make sense; some days the headwind isn't bad, other times it can be brutal. Same goes with the tailwind having had some incredibly fast PER-MEL flights.

On the TATL's, I like to see how far north the crossing is done -- and if over Greenland, just how far north.

One crossing that stands out was a DXB-EWR flight when MH was operating KUL-DXB-EWR as a one-stop.

Northern Flight Path on DXB-EWR at 7114 miles flown

The 7114 miles from a different Perspective

I had to input cities we flew near, but this is pretty close. If anything, we were just a bit further north going across Greenland.

If you look at the actual great circle flight path, it's much further south but incedibly close on the #'s at 6861 mi; with these numbers going north only add's 253 miles, but I would venture to say it decreased our time in flight.

Wheels up to Wheels down on this one was 15 hrs and 15 minutes, but I've done the route ~14 1/2 (DXB-NYC direction).

Bit faster going eastbound and the flight path has been closer to the GC, over Scotland, continental Europe, Turkey, Iran, and then coming in across the Gulf.

Map with Geo Borders and comparison with the actual GC

Also interesting is just how far north you'll go on a route like LAX-ICN as you eat dinner & fly up the coastline watching the Ocean that you'll eventually cross .

Here in the states, I find some of the t-storm dodging detours interesting though.

One final thought - now that FlightAware lists the distance between the two cities, the planned distance per the flight path, and the actual distance when complete, how about we start submitting requests for actual "butt in seat" mileage now that it's available