Flight paths over the North Pole – Arctic routes

Flying past the North Pole is actually more common than you might think – thanks to the great circle navigation. See some popular routes crossing the Arctic and find out why this is the shortest route for a lot of connections.

Flight paths crossing either of the uninhabited polar regions are usually known as polar routes, and more or less all commercial polar routes offered today cross the North Pole. The explanation for this is pretty simple – the northern half of the Earth is way more populated than the southern half.

When displayed on a two-dimensional map, taking a route over the North Pole might appear as a huge detour. But the reality of the situation is that this in many cases is the shortest flight path. The reason for this is the fact that the Earth isn’t flat – and to find the shortest flight distance on a sphere you need to follow the so-called great circles. This might be hard to grasp in text, but take a look at the image below of the route between New York and Hong Kong displayed on a globe. Here it is way more apparent that this is actually the shortest flight path to find between the two cities.

polar route new york hong kong — One popular route crossing the Arctic is the one connecting New York to Hong Kong. As you can tell from the map, this is the shortest path to find on this route.

Commercial flights over the Arctic circle

Transpolar flights passing the area around the North Pole are quite common, especially when it comes to connections between parts of North America and Asia. These types of flights save time and fuel by taking a more direct path over the Arctic. For example, a flight from New York to Tokyo saves several hours compared to choosing a path over the Pacific.

When it comes to the safety of taking a route over the North Pole, modern planes are equipped to handle Arctic conditions with advanced navigation and communication systems. The aircrafts have everything from enhanced GPS that ensures accurate positioning to advanced de-icing systems that keep planes operational in extreme cold.

flight paths north pole — A number of airlines worldwide offers flights that crosses the North Pole – one of them being Cathay Pacific.

Examples of transpolar flights

Below you find a list of some of the most popular routes passing the North Pole.* Follow each link to learn more about this specific flight option

New York to Hong Kong (JFK-HKG): On the route between New York and Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific uses a polar path for shorter travel.
Delhi to San Francisco (DEL-SFO): If you travel with Air India you can find this polar route that takes somewhere between 15 and 16 hours.
Los Angeles to Dubai (LAX-DXB): Another long-haul flight sometimes crossing the Arctic is Emirates’ flight between Los Angeles and Dubai.
Minneapolis to Seoul (MSP-ICN): This route either passes the Arctic area or crosses the Pacific Ocean. It is offered by major American operator Delta Air Lines.
New York to Singapore (JFK-SIN): Being one of the longest non-stop flights in the world, this connection has a flight time around 18-19 hours. This connection uses a polar route for efficiency, and is offered by Singapore Airlines.

*Because of the current situation in Russia/Ukraine a lot of airlines avoid this airspace. This affects the flight paths, and means that some airlines that normally fly across the North Pole choose a more southern route.