For example, if I were in Tangier, Morocco, and wanted to fly to Whangarei, New Zealand (the antipode on the globe) – wouldn’t it be about the same time to go up instead of across?
ETA: Thanks so much for the detailed explanations!
For those who are wondering why I picked Tangier/Whangarei, it was just a hypothetical! The-Minmus-Derp explained it perfectly: *Whangarei and Tangier airports are antipodes to the point that the runways OVERLAP in that way – if you stand on the right part if the Tangier runway, you are exactly opposite a part of the Whangarei runway, making it the farthest possible flight.*
In: 2270
They do, for example New York to Hong Kong.
Shortest route is over the north pole, around 8,000mi
The Cathay Pacific non-stop routes take this. Al “alternative” horizontal route that went from like New York to Alaska to Japan to Hong Kong so you remained near populated areas would be about 9,000mi
So more fuel/longer travel time.
Different routes priorities different things because of winds, safety, international air space, fuel, flight time etc
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