Originally Posted by
JimInOhio
I think the flight paths are simply determined by prevailing winds. If you look at the reverse route, you'd see the typical pattern is to fly NNE out of PEK and approach IAD from the NNW.
Yes. If you look at the gcmap (
Great Circle Mapper) routing it's over Hudson Bay and well east of Alaska. When I've flown that's more or less the route taken going to PEK, but there have been times the flights have headed more over Greenland. On the way back to IAD they usually don't go quite as far north, I believe to take advantage of some of the typical winds that blow generally from the west.
The area furthest from any airports is north of Siberia, although the ETOPS ratings of the planes UA flies all go well beyond the range necessary in that area.