I know that there is already a thread on the impact of the closure of Russian airspace on flight times but it seems mostly about people worrying about timetable changes due to the extra flight length. However, I thought it would be worth creating a new thread on the current use of the Polar Route for (the hopefully many of) us who, as aviation lovers and geography geeks just think of the Polar route as a wonderful thing to experience.

Well, that certainly was my case just flying ICN-HEL via the Polar route. The past few days, Westbound flights had instead used the Southern route (via China, skirting the Himalaya, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the South of the Black Sea, Budapest and then turning sharp North towards Helsinki) so my hopes were low, but when I was told we were "doing" the polar route, I was as excited as a 5 year old.

For those who haven't had the pleasure yet but share my excitement, the idea is that you go from Northeast Asia (in this case Seoul) to Northern Europe (in this case Helsinki) not by flying West as would seem logical but by going Northeast. You fly over Japan and along the Kamtchatka peninsula and in the middle of the Behring straight, embracing the East of Russia to your left and the West of Alaska to your right. You then make a straight line towards the North pole and then head over the Spitzbergen, north of Norway and Lappland before landing in Helsinki. The route is full of quirks. For instance:

- You travel 17 time zones, many of which within a few minutes of each other (as time zones are ultra narrow near the poles), and including the International Date Line,
- As you head nearly straight north, and given the shape of the earth, you fly over parallels at extreme speeds - approximately 1 degree in 7 minutes around the 82nd parallel, even less when you are around 88-90 degrees,
- You cross from night to day to night again during a flight which leaves at 11pm and arrives at 5am at least in this season (it might be different at other times of year since there is no daylight in much of that part of the world around the winter solstice and conversely no night near the summer solstice),
- This also gives you a chance to enjoy some of the desolate landscapes of the Arctic ocean (though I suspect much of the cabin hated me for looking out in the middle of the night!),
- This is obviously not guaranteed, but in our case, we also saw some Aurora Borealis (Northern lights) on the way as an added treat!

Finnair give you a North pole certificate, but to be honest I won't need that to remember this flight. As someone who loves planes, loves flying loves geography and travel, this was simply an exceptional treat and one I enjoyed thoroughly, and hopefully, at least some of you here will relate to my excitement or have had a chance to share it and I thought that this could be a nice thread in which to share our exciting experiences...