Are commercial airlines allowed to fly over the north and south poles?
Are commercial airlines allowed to fly over the north and south poles?
Yes, and airlines often do in routes like New York to Singapore, as it is a shorter distance
Flights routinely go over the north pole. I've never heard of any commercial flights going over the south pole--it's too far out of the way, plus there are no emergency landing fields.
Over the north pole yes. But airlines do not fly over Antarctica for safety reasons, mostly due to they can't make an emergency landing.
Airlines routinely fly over the north pole (or close to it) since it is the shortest way to get between many parts of the world.
On the other hand the south pole isn't along the path of any flight routes. There used to be tourist flights that few over the south pole. A commercial plane would be allowed to fly over the south pole if it either had three or four engines or there were a close enough divert field for a twin engine plane's ETOPS rating.
YES they could fly over the poles if they want too.
It does not make business sense to fly over the South Pole but can be done.
Many flights already do fly over near the North Pole. Most pilots will not deliberately lengthen their routes to deliberately fly extra for passengers to get a few seconds of over the pole time.
This is not some mystery or secret and any school child can figure out why routes go where they go with a globe and a piece of string.
Commercially viable flights over the Arctic were cleared in 2011, when twin engine jets were granted longer ETOPS (extended operations) times - allowing them to use Santa's Shortcut.
A direct flight from New Zealand to South Africa over Antarctica is technically possible - it's shorter than following the route across the Tropic of Capricorn, which a 777, 787 or A330 could fly direct. But no airline currently flies over the south pole, and not just because of its isolation.
Antarctica is littered with airfields - so why doesn't it overcome the rules for ETOPS? Because it's so bitterly cold and inhospitable to human life - and to jet planes.
Yes, they are allowed to fly over both North and South Pole. Because there's more landmass and more people live in the Northern Hemisphere, commercial flights over or near the North Pole are quiet common; an Emirates' flight from Dubai to San Francisco is a good example.
There's less landmass and less population in the Southern Hemisphere, so there are fewer city pairs that would require routing over Antarctica. There are currently no commercial flights that pass over Antarctica, though Air New Zealand used to have sightseeing flights over the continent. These flights ended when one of its DC-10s crashed into Mt. Erebus in 1979.
There are only two potential city pairs with routing over Antarctica that would generate enough traffic to make them commercially viable: Auckland, New Zealand to Johannesburg and to Capetown, South Africa. The Great Circle route to Johannesburg will just skirt the coast of Antarctica, while the Capetown flight routing will be further inland, but still hundreds of miles from the South Pole.
No airline currently flies these routes. While these routes are well within range of current aircraft, there are no suitable diversion airports along the way even under the longest allowable ETOPS-370 rule. This precludes Air New Zealand's 777 and 787s from flying the route. Only South African Airways' A340-600 may operate these flights, if SAA decided to inaugurate the service and the fleet was certified for ETOPS-370 operations. South African Airways, however, has only 9 of A340-600s in its fleet and these are fully employed on the routes to the US, Australia, and Europe.
Yes they are
Until recently, regulators have insisted that twin-engine jets must always be within three hours of a suitable place to land. This is because the failure of one engine on such a plane is potentially far more serious than for one with three or four. However, commercial flights do fly over the North Pole.
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