Arctic Routing

[jacek_flying]

Hi all this is more directed to those of you who do long haul flights. But anyone who has knowledge on the topic I would love to hear from you.

I was wondering how the Arctic Routing works and how popular these routes are? I remember hearing a while back that they were supposed to bring great savings to the airline industry. Dont seem to hear anything much about them these days. Also if someone could post a couple of the routes or as much as you remember. Is Part of the route go directly over the pole? (true/magnetic). Also how is ETOPS done in this case or does it simply not exist?

Great thanks in advance.
Safe Flying everyone.

[Joe Blow Schmo]

They work well. I don't know of any that go directly over the pole. Usually one side or the other. All the Eastern North America to Asia flights would normally use the polar routes. ETOPS works the same way it would anywhere else.

[complexintentions]

EK regularly flies polar routings, DXB-SFO and DXB-LAX. (B777-300ER/200LR) The routing usually takes one directly north from the Middle East, there really isn't much to post as generally they are random routings. It's common to be handled by Murmansk on the eastern side, Reykjavik briefly for the "oceanic" segment, and then Gander handles the comms on HF until ADS position reporting (datalink) with Edmonton becomes available, and eventually, radar coverage again down near Fort Mac. Speaking of comms, above 82N you usually lose satcom and occasionally HF as well for awhile, which is not pleasant - you're on your own with several hundred people and better hope you don't get a medical or technical issue.

Navigation is pure GPS of course, as the track changes extremely rapidly that close to the pole. Above 82N the aircraft switches automatically from magnetic track to true. And yes, we do fly directly over the pole, usually within about 30 miles. As far as ETOPS, absolutely it applies. On a sixteen hour flight the flight might be ETOPS for over 10 hours. There are very few capable airports that far north, designated alternates include Chelyabinsk, Thule, and Fairbanks.

At the planning stage they monitor the space weather and publish the various indices for the solar radiation storm scale, radio blackout scale, and geomagnetic storm scale as these can obviously have an impact on health, and nav and comms ability. If they're above certain thresholds polar routings aren't used that day.

As far as being polar routings being popular, I would say not, more to the lack of city pairs that have practical use for them and airlines with the capability to use them.

[jacek_flying]

EK regularly flies polar routings, DXB-SFO and DXB-LAX. (B777-300ER/200LR) The routing usually takes one directly north from the Middle East, there really isn't much to post as generally they are random routings. It's common to be handled by Murmansk on the eastern side, Reykjavik briefly for the "oceanic" segment, and then Gander handles the comms on HF until ADS position reporting (datalink) with Edmonton becomes available, and eventually, radar coverage again down near Fort Mac. Speaking of comms, above 82N you usually lose satcom and occasionally HF as well for awhile, which is not pleasant - you're on your own with several hundred people and better hope you don't get a medical or technical issue.

Navigation is pure GPS of course, as the track changes extremely rapidly that close to the pole. Above 82N the aircraft switches automatically from magnetic track to true. And yes, we do fly directly over the pole, usually within about 30 miles. As far as ETOPS, absolutely it applies. On a sixteen hour flight the flight might be ETOPS for over 10 hours. There are very few capable airports that far north, designated alternates include Chelyabinsk, Thule, and Fairbanks.

At the planning stage they monitor the space weather and publish the various indices for the solar radiation storm scale, radio blackout scale, and geomagnetic storm scale as these can obviously have an impact on health, and nav and comms ability. If they're above certain thresholds polar routings aren't used that day.

As far as being polar routings being popular, I would say not, more to the lack of city pairs that have practical use for them and airlines with the capability to use them.

That is great information I thought that this was going to turn out to be all the rage once airlines got approvals to use it. I certainetly don't envy crews flying comms and navs out hope it isn't too long of a period of time. I appreciate the info sounds like interesting flying up there, I imagine the views are also quite something.