Poland’s national airline LOT has run the first flight on what could be a new route connecting Warsaw to Tokyo via the North Pole – thereby avoiding Russian airspace.
On Saturday, flight LOT80 departed Tokyo’s Narita International Airport at around 11.22 p.m. local time bound for Warsaw’s Chopin Airport. The plane, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, flew through the Bering Strait, past the North Pole and over Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
It landed in Warsaw at 5.33 a.m. local time on Sunday, after a total flight time of 13 hours and 34 minutes.
Pierwszy rejs #LOT.wskiego #Dreamliner.a trasą polarną. ✈️👍🏻 #Boeing #B787 #PLLLOT #PolishAirlines #flyLOT #NRT #WAW pic.twitter.com/4XLvX2BxCL
— Łukasz Jóźwiak (@josviaque) June 17, 2023
The airline says the route could cut around 1.5 hours off travel time between the Polish and Japanese capitals, which currently stands at over 14 hours. Previously, the flights were around 10 hours, but EU aircraft have been banned from Russian airspace since February 2022, meaning longer flight times.
LOT spokesman Krzysztof Moczulski says that using the polar route to Tokyo is the “next step” in the airline’s development. It could also open up new connections, such as direct flights to Honolulu, Hawaii, he adds.
The maiden polar flight was made possible after LOT obtained permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to change its operating certificate. In the months prior to the flight it also had to implement a range of guidelines set by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency for flying through polar regions.
Changes had to be made to the plane’s operations manual, crew had to undergo special training, and flight planning software had to be updated. Additional equipment also had to be purchased for the aircraft, such as polar suits for the crew and foil blankets for the passengers in case of an emergency.
Pierwszy Dreamliner PLL LOT leci z Tokio do Warszawy trasą polarną.
Dzięki decyzji ULC o zmianie w części Certyfikatu Przewoźnika Lotniczego AOC, polegającej na rozszerzeniu obszaru prowadzenia operacji o północną strefę polarną oraz o zwiększeniu ETOPS ze 180 do 207 minut dla… pic.twitter.com/3yds7OATTf
— Krzysztof Moczulski (@egonolsen1978) June 17, 2023
Cutting journey times by taking the polar route will reduce fuel consumption, ease strains on crew, and allow aircraft to carry more freight, says Moczulski. It could potentially become the main flight path for LOT’s Warsaw-Tokyo service, he adds.
LOT is not the first airline to fly over the North Pole as a way of bypassing Russian airspace to get to and from Asia. In March 2022, Finnish flag carrier Finnair altered the route of its Helsinki-Tokyo service to cross over the North Pole.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, EU countries banned Russian airlines from operating within their airspace. In retaliation, Russia enacted a ban of its own, barring operators from the EU, UK, United States and Canada from its airspace.
As a result, EU airlines had to alter routes that had previously crossed over Russian territory, especially for flights bound for Asia. LOT’s regular Warsaw-Tokyo service developed a new flight path, which took aircraft south of Russia, flying over Romanian, Kazakh and Chinese airspace.
Image credit: FlightRadar24
Anna Hackett is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a recent graduate of European Studies from Trinity College Dublin and has had previous journalistic experience with the Irish Independent News & Media group.
