Most people would consider that the shortest route for a commercial flight is to draw a straight line from the city of departure to the city of destination, however, when making a trip it is observed that this line is curved and can vary according to the airline’s schedule.
The reason why the route is not straight is due to the surface where it is drawn, in the case of airplanes its movement is through the Earth which is a sphere; for this reason, the shortest line between two points of the sphere is the geodesic one, these are arcs over the spheres that correspond to “circles” that are centered on the planet.
Based on the above, it is clear that the shortest routes to join two points depend a lot on the surface where they will be carried out, in the case of flights it is more complicated because other factors also intervene, such as air pass restrictions, the weather or the relationship between temperature, height and weight in an aircraft.
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How do airlines choose their shortest routes?
The airlines to establish and organize their routes are mainly based on the economic factors of the market, where the analysis is focused through an economic feasibility study of their convenience, also evaluate the control fees of the destinations, the airports to visit and the aircraft they can use to reduce costs.
How are flights planned?
By means of historical analyses of routes, changes in other airlines and market capacity, airlines define a set of itineraries to be carried out, which implies delimiting the airports they are interested in covering and their possibility of operating in them. In addition, they must also decide what the departure and arrival times and frequencies of the flights will be.
After validating this series of steps, the airline studies the elevation of the terrain to be flown over and the mountains, which are the areas with the greatest probability of turbulence, which would be the shortest route, where the points of easy visual identification are located, where the dangerous, prohibited or restricted areas are located, which are the auxiliary radio aids available and which is the location of the alternative airports, both en route and at the destination. This is an activity that is carried out between 12 and 18 months before the beginning of the flights, so it is very likely that modifications must be made before the start.
Air exclusion zone
Within the planning of flights, pilots must consider which the prohibited areas are, these are considered those areas by which it is prohibited to overfly, and it should be considered that this does not restrict only to the aircraft but also covers any flying device. The restriction of the air zone is taken by a state, over its own territory for national security reasons or by international organizations through an agreement.
Shorter international commercial flight
According to the information provided by the airlines, the shortest commercial flight in the world lasts only one minute and a half, its route is from Westray Island to Papa Westray Island in the north of Great Britain and is carried out by the company Longanair. This flight covers 2.7 kilometers and has a value of approximately 20 Euros.
On the other hand, there is one of the longest flights, this one is carried out by the company of Singapore Airlines, it goes from New York to Singapore and it takes almost 18 hours, that is to say, about 1.080 times more than the shortest flight of the world, in addition, its cost is of almost 1900 Euros.
Eliminated one of the shortest flights in the world
The airlines are constantly looking to improve their service and routes, sometimes creating new airlines to cover more destinations, as we saw in our previous article entitled Lufthansa and its next new holiday airline “Ocean” in which the airline decided to open that new entity for new destinations.
Now, flight companies must also validate whether the routes they offer provide the profit they are looking for, which is why the flight from Maastricht to Liège with a distance of 38 kilometers and duration of nine minutes due to the high environmental cost was eliminated from the airline’s services.
What do you think about this issue? How do you feel about the shorter routes of commercial flights?
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Image by Joelfotos via Pixabay under Creative Commons license.
