LH PEK-MUC flight path near ukraine/russia?
 

Hi all, I have some questions. I have family flying on LH PEK-MUC tomorrow and given the situation in the ukraine/russia area, does LH actively avoid flying anywhere near that region? From flightaware, i have seen some routes that seem to go around Ukraine, should I be concerned? Thanks.

Lufthansa have already announced that they will avoid the area for the time being. saw that on the bbc website

I hear that Christopher Columbus was looking for a safer route.

The news is a definite bummer. I've got two upcoming flights that I'm wondering about. (1) Malaysian Airlines from Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai. Malaysian Airlines' track record this year isn't doing so well. (2) Turkish Airlines from IST to MLE. When I look at a map, that means over Iran/Iraq. Oh, and if we go around Iran/Iraq, what do we get? Afghanistan and/or Syria? My sixth sense is asking me to reconsider.

I don't blame you, it's all looking a bit scary. But it should not be like this and life goes on anyway, it simply has to. So we should take our flights as planned and everything will be ok, as it always has been....statistically. At least, here, we should be able to set the example for others and hopefully help them in so doing.

LH FRA-SIN and LH FRA-HKG were flying over Eastern Ukraine in May when there was significant fighting in this area.

LH 796 Boeing 747-8i over Eastern Ukraine

Dear matrixwalker2002,

the Lufthansa website shows that Lufthansa has committed itself not to fly over that region.

http://www.lufthansa.com/de/de/Fluginformationen

Rush translation by gum (just as courtesy for the other FTers, not including any legal obligation):

There was and is not a no-fly zone within the air space of the Ukraine. However Lufthansa has decided to fly-round the air space of the Eastern part of the Ukraine with a wide-range deviation. The safety of our passengers is our first concern. At the moment there are no limitations for the Lufthansa destinations Kiew and Odessa.

Hope this helps, Matrixwalker2002!

To check where the flightpaths usually are just search for your flight on FR, the paths for LH723 (the OP) were like this:

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/lh723/

The MUC PEK flight usually goes over northern russia, like most flights to the far east.

Southern China (HKG) and all the asian destinations usually take a track south of the black sea and then over Iran to Afpak and India. Depending on the weather some flights are routed a bit more northerly.

BTW, the countries you fly over make a lot of money, for example a LH A380 flying FRA-SIN spends 50000€ in flying rights each time. This involves some care, Afganistan for example kept their airspace open and secure even when the Taliban was running the show because it was a good source of income.

Yesterday, most people would probably have been mocking of the apparent prudence exhibited by two airlines featured in this graphic, which traces the paths flown by a selection of flights in the past several days.

Source: New York Times

http://i60.tinypic.com/264rm3b.png

There's some interesting chatter on the BA thread, including some stuff from a chap who seems to know what he is taking about:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...r-ukraine.html


It appears that British Airways, among other airlines, took seriously advice received from security services and ICAO. BA overflights have avoided the area entirely for some months.

On the other hand, Lufthansa assessed the security information differently - presumably when this was weighed against the operational penalties and costs involved.


Illustrative graphics in this NY Times link:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...mh17.html?_r=0

Interesting that in the NYT graph LH772 only shows about 3 times... I suppose the intern doing research got tired at one point ;)

Maybe LH are just better than all the other airlines at following the exact same path with slavish, robotic diligence, day after day after day...

Not really, I looked at some of the flightpaths at the same source:

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/lh772

Usually weather and time slots over congested areas (mostly in AFPAK and northern India) determine what paths the LH OCC pick and file. I seriously doubt they just copy paste flight plans.

Thumbs up for BA and AF to avoid a warzone, even if it meant a bit more of fuel use..

They all fly over Irag and Afghanistan not to mention anyone flying to Central or Southern Africa tends to pass more than a few hotspots so giving thumbs up in this case to or BA or AF for avoiding a war zone seems a touch dubious.

Back to the OP question it does seem indeed that at least for the moment all of the commercial airlines are avoiding flying over the contested areas of the Ukraine.

I agree with this, who knew the russian are going to give heavy hardware to the happy trigger finger guys.


Well they have no choice in this, Eurocontrol and the ukranian authorities have closed that airspace.