transpac flight paths
 

I arrived in SH on UA 857 yesterday, a flight I've done ~25 times since its inception.

Typically, it hugs the coast until YVR before heading west. On one occasion, we headed northeast to Sacramento, went due north well into Canada, overflew Siberia and NE China, then detoured around NK (which I appreciated).

However, yesterday, we took off to the west and never looked back... the same as the typical east bound flight path (<1,000 miles north of Hawaii). I had been under the assumption that this routing was longer, but made sense going east because of strong tailwinds. As it turns out, it was only 200 miles longer than the optimal route, and winds were almost a non-factor.

I guess I haven't taken many trips to Asia during August, so the above might be quite normal, but it was a first for me.

In closing, I look forward to your comments, particularly those pertaining to recent westbound transpacs.

Odds are the lower winds on that route made it more desirable for that day. If the jetstream was farther north then a "typical" pattern would have faced stronger headwinds and it would have been a slower flight.

The jetstream was over the Yukon yesterday.

Thanks for the replies. This sort of makes sense.

http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_pac_init_00.gif