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Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, the flag carrier of Hong Kong, announced it would start flying using Russian airspace again. The airline is set to resume travel via the Polar Route on Nov. 1.
Starting on the said date, Cathay Pacific flights from New York to Hong Kong will take the Russian airspace path. The company revealed this decision on Sunday, Oct. 30.
This will be the first time that it will traverse this route again after several months. It has been avoiding it since February when Russia began attacking Ukraine with the intention of invading it.
Cathay Pacific confirmed to Reuters via email that some flights via the Polar Route are resuming this week. The company explained that the decision was made because of the strong headwinds and payload issues that are affecting the flights from New York to Hong Kong.
"The Polar Route provides a safe, direct and fastest flight experience to our customers traveling from the East Coast of North America to Hong Kong", the airline stated. It also noted that there is no sanction that is prohibiting it from taking the mentioned route. The airline will fly over the far eastern part of Russia.
With its decision, Cathay Pacific has become one of the first major airlines to fly over Russian airspace again. Meanwhile, it was Bloomberg News that first published the report about the airline’s plan for flight resumption in Polar Route.
The air carrier will be saving on the cost of fuel since it will shorten flight times. This will make traveling faster since this is the shortest path to get to the destination as well.
However, Cathay Pacific may have to pay an overflight fee to the Russian authorities. This is collected for permission to fly over Siberia and is required per trip.
Meanwhile, the expanse of Russian airspace reaches 5,600 miles or about 9,012 kilometers from the adjacent eastern perimeter of Asia and the US state of Alaska to the cap of northern Europe in Finland. This route is considered crucial since the link offers a shortcut for most flights through the polar routes.
Photo by: Fasyah Halim/Unsplash
