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
It’s called a [Polar Route](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_route) and they are somewhat common. If a route would be far shorter going over the artic, they do just that.
However, the risk of going over the artic is there are very few airports up there. So if a plane needs to make an unscheduled landing they have far fewer options. So if a flight path is similar, or a little longer, but it flies over more populated areas, the airlines will choose that route.
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