Polar route

A polar route is an aircraft route across the uninhabited polar ice cap regions. The term "polar route" was originally applied to great circle routes between Europe and the west coast of North America in the 1950s.

Arctic Ocean
The American Federal Aviation Administration now defines the North Polar area of operations as the area north of 78° north latitude, which is north of Alaska and most of Siberia.

Aircraft like the Boeing 747-400, 747-8, 777-200ER, 777-200LR, 777-300ER and Boeing 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10, as well as the Airbus A340, A350 and A380, with ranges of around 7,000 nautical miles (8,100 mi; 13,000 km) or more, are required in order to travel the long distances nonstop between suitable airports.

Arctic polar routes are now common on airlines connecting Asian cities to North American cities. Emirates flies nonstop from Dubai to the US West Coast (San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles), coming within a few degrees of latitude of the North Pole. Singapore Airlines also fly non-stop from Newark to Singapore along the polar route.

Antarctica
Because of ETOPS limitations on twin-engined aircraft—the maximum distance the aircraft can operate from an airport for emergency landings—only four-engined aircraft such as the Boeing 747, Airbus A340, and Airbus A380 can or could operate routes near Antarctica. Twin-engined aircraft must fly further north, closer to potential diversion airports; for example, when Virgin Australia operated their VA 15 and VA 16 flights between Melbourne and Johannesburg on twin-engined Boeing 777 aircraft with a 180-minute ETOPS rating, the flight was two hours longer than a Qantas flight from Sydney to Johannesburg. Air New Zealand flight ANZ30 and ANZ31 flies nonstop between Auckland and Buenos Aires-Ezeiza; in 2015, government regulators approved its twin-engined Boeing 777-200ER aircraft that operate the route for a 330-minute ETOPS rating (i.e. its 777 aircraft can fly a maximum 330 minutes away from the nearest diversion airport), an increase from its previous 240-minute ETOPS rating. LATAM Airlines began their LAN800 and LAN801 nonstop flights between Santiago de Chile and Sydney via Auckland in April 2015 with twin-engined Boeing 787 aircraft with a 330-minute ETOPS rating. LATAM has announced a nonstop flight between Santiago de Chile and Melbourne to begin in October 2017.

The southernmost flight route with plausible airports would be between Buenos Aires and Perth. With a 175° (S) heading, the route's great circle exceeds 85° S and would be within 310 miles (500 km) from the South Pole. Currently, no commercial airliners operates this 6,800-nautical-mile (7,800 mi; 12,600 km) route. However, in February, 2018, it was stated that Norwegian Air Argentina is considering this "less than 15 hours" trans-polar flight between South America and Asia, with a stop-over in Perth enroute Singapore. They will not fly over the South Pole, but around Antarctica taking advantage of the strong winds which circle that continent in an easterly direction. Hence, the "westbound" flight from Buenos Aires would actually travel south-east south of Cape Town, over the southern Indian Ocean and on to Perth, while the true "eastbound" flight would also head south-east south of Tasmania and New Zealand, over the South Pacific and on to South America. If this route becomes operational, a Buenos Aires - Singapore return flight would possibly be the fastest circumnavigation available with commercial airliners, although Perth - Buenos Aires return would be faster but without passing the Equator.