anta Claus isn't riding on the wing,
but travelers are getting a gift, in the form of new government
agreements and long-range aircraft that are opening up many more
airline routes over the North Pole.
Continental used a new polar route to launch a Newark-Hong Kong
nonstop March 1 that keeps passengers on the 777 for about 15 hours
and 30 minutes -- at least two hours less than the trip would take
with a connection. That's considered especially tempting to
business travelers, for whom time and convenience often take
precedence.
United is scheduled to launch its daily nonstop between New
York's Kennedy Airport and Hong Kong on April 1, flying over the
pole on a 747 and touting the connections from Hong Kong to the
rest of its Asia network.
Hong Kong's own Cathay Pacific is hoping to start New York-Hong
Kong nonstops this year.
Air Canada will launch its first polar route Oct. 19 with
seasonal flights four times a week between Vancouver and New Delhi,
India, through April 2002.
The airline targets the service to Asian communities in western
Canada and the U.S., and it boasts that the trip will be four hours
shorter than other routes.
Polar routes are not completely new -- United already uses one
for Chicago-Hong Kong, and Northwest for Detroit-Beijing, to give
just two examples. The routes not only shorten flights and save
airlines money on fuel, but also lower their maintenance and
operational costs because the aircraft don't have to land and take
off as often.
But polar routes are becoming more prevalent now in part because
of an agreement reached in January by member nations of the
International Civil Aviation Organization. That deal allocated
responsibility for polar search and rescue operations and
established alternate landing sites in case of emergencies.
Russia's desire for more cash -- airlines must pay it for
overflight rights -- and the development of longer-range aircraft
also should make polar routes more popular.
"Now that we have the technology to fly these routes nonstop,
customers are going to increasingly demand it," a United spokesman
predicted.
"What's a more precious commodity to the consumer than time?"
said Gordon Bethune, Continental's chairman and chief executive
officer, in an interview in Hong Kong just after his airline
launched its new service.
A study by Nav Canada and Russia's Federal Aviation Authority
identified 33 city-pairs that could benefit from polar routes,
including Atlanta-Seoul, Boston-Hong Kong, Los Angeles-Bangkok and
New York-Singapore.
There is, however, one potential hitch in this scenario: some of
the rights being used now are temporary, in theory, and could run
out as soon as October if U.S. and Russian officials can't reach a
long-term agreement.