This more or less means that a country controls whether Europe can reach Asia smoothly. However, for a period of time in history, they could not. During the cold war, almost all airlines did not allow non-Soviet companies to fly over the Soviet Union. This indirectly proves that the time span of traveling from Europe to Asia is huge.
In 1950s, the fastest route for British Overseas Airlines from London to Tokyo was Friday morning 10, passing through Rome, Beirut, Bahrain, Karachi, Kolkata, Yangon, Bangkok and Manila, stopping in Manila, and finally arriving in Tokyo at 6: 00 on Sunday morning. All in all, it was a 36-hour, 65,438+00,000-mile trip, and it was the fastest service of their comet jet between two cities which were 6000 miles apart.
Those slower and cheaper propeller planes will leave London on Sunday after an 88-hour journey and will not arrive in Tokyo until next Thursday. Such a flight plan is extremely inefficient, but there is also a better and faster way-flying over the North Pole.
Nordic Airlines was the first airline to develop a trans-Arctic route, but other airlines soon followed suit. These routes were first used to get to the west coast of the United States faster. At the same time, it also involves the need to develop a new navigation system to overcome the problem that the traditional magnetic compass cannot work normally in high latitudes.
In the 1950s, there were no commercial flights to the west coast of the United States, but with the new polar route of Nordic Airlines, they took a relatively fast route, starting from Copenhagen, stopping at Concord Fargo in Greenland and Winnipeg in Canada, and then arriving in Los Angeles. This shortens the journey from 36 hours to 22 hours.
As Nordic Airlines proved that commercial flights over the Arctic were safe and commercially feasible, other airlines quickly followed suit, establishing routes not only to the west coast of the United States, but also to the Far East. The most direct route from London to Tokyo is to fly over Siberia, but because the airspace is closed, the airline has chosen another road-another road around the world.
1960, only 40,000 people lived in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska had just become a state the year before last, but its airport became an important stop between Europe and Asia. British Overseas Airlines will leave Heathrow Airport at 1:45 pm, arrive in Anchorage nine and a half hours later, stop for one hour to refuel, and then fly to Tokyo within the remaining seven hours. In a word, according to the schedule, it only takes 17 and a half hours, which is half less than the previous trip. This is like Concorde shortening the flight time from new york to London from 6 hours to 3 hours, greatly shortening the travel time.
In the 1960s and 1970s, all major European airlines established routes to the Far East via Anchorage. Although there are only dozens of commercial flights to the continental United States in Anchorage today, in the 1970s, Air France, Nordic Airlines, Dutch Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Lufthansa, Japan Airlines and Korean Air all provided services for it. This small town in Alaska has quickly become one of the most closely connected international metropolises in the world. Because of its geographical location, passengers and crew from all over the world have to live here.
With the aircraft becoming more and more advanced and farther away, some airlines try to avoid stopping at Anchorage on the way from Europe to East Asia. For example, Finnair 1983 started direct flights from Helsinki to Tokyo and flew over the North Pole in the international airspace in northern Russia. This makes today's 9-hour flight become 13 hours, but it is still faster than stopping in Anchorage. However, most airlines continue to fly through Anchorage. But in the end, the Soviet Union disintegrated at 199 1, and then Russia began to grant overflight rights to airlines in Europe and East Asia.
Before gaining the right of overflight, they must first modernize and English their air traffic control system. Because all international pilots and air traffic controllers in the world speak English, air traffic controllers in Russia could not speak English in the past because there were few international flights over Russia. Once the communication methods between the two sides are unified, airlines will quickly change the route of direct flights from Europe to Asia and fly directly over Siberia.
This made Anchorage largely abandoned. Anchorage Airport built a large modern international terminal at 1982 to handle all the traffic passing through the airport, but less than ten years later, all these made busy airlines leave the airport. Today, the international terminal can handle hundreds of flights every month, but there is only one flight every few days.
At the same time, due to the opening of airspace, Russia is also booming. Because flying to Asia via Siberia saves airlines a lot of time and money, Russia charges airlines huge airspace leap fees. The specific figures vary from airline to airline.
In the transit agreement signed by 133 countries, the agreement basically allows any airline of any country to fly over the airspace of the signatory countries, but Russia does not. They can choose which country's airlines fly over their airspace.
Russia can and has used its airspace as a geopolitical weapon. In 20 14, they threatened to close the airspace of EU airlines in response to sanctions; In 20 17, they threatened to close the airspace of KLM in response to a Russian airline reducing its landing time at Schiphol Airport. 2065438+April 2008, they tacitly threatened to close the airspace of American Airlines in response to the US military action in Syria.
Russia not only decides which countries can fly in its airspace, but also decides which specific airlines. One of them stipulates that only one airline in each European country can fly over Russia. Of course, there are exceptions-for example, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are headquartered in London, but they both fly over Siberia on the routes to Shanghai and Hongkong, but Air France is the only French company that has the right to fly over Siberia, Lufthansa is the only German airline that has the right to fly over Siberia, Iberia is the only spanair company that has the right to fly over Siberia, and so on.
European countries are not that big, and intercontinental airlines rarely have more than one, but now, this situation is changing. We see more and more low-cost airlines competing with large established airlines on long-haul routes. However, due to this overflight permit system, established airlines have more or less monopolized East Asian routes. For example, SAS operates in Norway, Denmark and Sweden, and they also have the right to fly over Siberia, so they can fly directly to Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and other cities by flying over Siberia. Therefore, Nordic Airlines is the only Scandinavian airline allowed to fly over Siberia.
But there are also norwegian air shuttle companies in Scandinavia. As one of the largest low-cost airlines in the world, norwegian air shuttle Shuttle Company pioneered long-distance and low-speed flights, with its main routes focusing on flights from major European cities to the United States. However, the airline has indicated that it wants to expand eastward. They already have flights from Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm to Bangkok, and from London to Singapore, but these destinations are all in the south and there is no need to fly over Siberia. The airline has repeatedly applied to Russia for the right to fly over Siberia, but it has been rejected many times. They think that Nordic Airlines does not operate any flights from Norway to Asia, so they should be licensed as the only norwegian air shuttle company. However, due to the partial registration of SAS in Norway, the Russian side did not grant permission.
Norwegian air shuttle Aerospace does have a legally registered subsidiary in the UK, but it is unlikely that Russia will grant it overflight rights, because British Airways and Virgin Atlantic also have overflight rights. Norwegian air shuttle Aerospace Company also has a subsidiary in Ireland and has no right to fly over Siberia. However, Nordic Airlines also has a subsidiary in Ireland, which may mean that Russia will also refuse to give this subsidiary overflight rights. So far, Russia has not given any permission for economic airlines to fly over. Other airlines have also tried. icelandair tried to negotiate overflight rights, but Russia regards overflight rights as a way to make money, hoping to collect fees, which is one of the reasons why low-cost airlines can't fly over.
At present, Icelandic Airlines has planned to open flights from Reykjavik to Delhi, India. On the direct flight route, the flight will fly over Russia. Russia is a powerful and politically proficient country and knows that these overflights are a huge negotiating tool. Revoking the rights of a country's airlines will be a huge financial blow, and granting rights is also a huge advantage. However, competition is a good thing for consumers. However, at present, this good thing has been directly killed by the overflight right system. Until Russia starts granting overflight rights to low-cost airlines, direct flights to Asia will remain very expensive.
However, the fact that this shortcut over Siberia is now open also proves that it can save millions of passengers a lot of time and money every year.