What is the Cost of Flying 'The Long Way Round'?

In an ideal world, airlines will try and fly the most direct routing between airports. Unfortunately, there are many overflight restrictions these days making this more difficult and increasing overall flying time and costs.

Take the Istanbul to Delhi route that avoids overflying Iranian, Pakistani and Chinese airspace. The avoidance routing flies 5,896 km via Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and Oman, picking up $2,478 in en-route charges across eight states.

The counter-intuitive part: the avoidance routing covers more distance and has increased operating costs, especially fuel, but has lower navigation charges despite flying over more countries.

We unpack the details in our latest article: What is the Cost of Flying 'The Long Way Round'?