When Japan Airlines and Finnair departed Helsinki for Tokyo-Haneda back-to-back, the race was on. The 15 June flights took opposite paths to Tokyo, with JAL heading north and taking a polar route, while Finnair tacked south. Just after take off, we wanted to see who would be the first to touch down in Tokyo.
Japan Airlines’ 777-300ER JA733J departed Helsinki’s Vantaa Airport at 15:56 UTC, giving it a two minute head start on Finnair’s A350-900 OH-LWI. Shortly after takeoff it looked like JAL would make it to Tokyo well before Finnair. It had departed first and was taking a shorter route.
But Finnair had speed and wind on its side. By mid-way through the flight AY61 was projected to arrived 45 minutes before JL48 thanks to advantageous winds, especially over the Black Sea, and the A350’s overall speed advantage compared to the 777.
Even though Finnair flew 457 additional track kilometers, it managed to make it to Tokyo nearly one hour faster than JAL. Both airlines flew 4,000 kilometers further than the great circle route between the two cities, due to both carriers not using Russian airspace. At their farthest point apart, the two flights were separated by approximately 6,380 kilometers.
Finnair has been particularly impacted over the past few years by the airspace restrictions. The Nordic airline’s business model in large part was buoyed by its ability to quickly connect passengers between Europe and East Asia.
Why choose a different route?
If the southern route is so much faster, why did Japan Airlines fly north in the first place? Each airline performs a series of calculations for every flight that provides the optimal routing based on a variety of factors. Aircraft performance, weight, winds, en route weather, traffic, overflight fees, and other factors can all play into the decision to fly a particular route.
Comparing AY61 and JL48 both airlines have utilized both polar and southern routes on a regular basis. The best route for the day will always depend on weighting competing factors and choosing what works best for the airline to get its aircraft, passengers, and cargo to their destination safely.
Comparing new and old routes
What about compared to flights prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? We flew aboard Finnair’s flight to Tokyo not long after and compared the two.
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FIN is a Lido Flight customer, finding best routes.
why may they not fly over russia?
Just found out. From online: “Tokyo flights cannot fly over Russia due to reciprocal airspace bans imposed by Russia and many other countries in response to the war in Ukraine. Following Russia’s invasion, many nations, including Japan, banned Russian aircraft from their airspace. In retaliation, Russia closed its airspace to airlines from these countries. This means that flights between Tokyo and Europe, or even some flights across the North Pacific, must now take longer routes to avoid Russian territory.”
Really fascinating to see how routing and jet stream winds can completely flip expectations! I wouldn’t have guessed that flying 457 km more could still result in arriving nearly an hour earlier.
Just took Finnair polar route back from Tokyo to Helsinki. 12:20/30 min give or take on what was meant to be a 12:50 flight. Seems Finnair seeks tailwinds. Fastest I saw us at was like 597mph with a strong tailwind.
But that plane is faster too. Not just tail winds.
Not relevant. .84 compared to .85
Relevant enough over 12,000 km, especially if you’re paying the bills.
A 1% of the speed of sound difference is not really relevant at all since so much depends on the wing and engine design. Much more important are the effects of the upper winds. 😑
It is indeed relevant as .84 at FL350/370 is much slower and less economical than .85 at FL410-FL430
Both should have been operating same aircraft type.
Thanks for the analysis. Another similar case is the Pacific route between SFO and HKG. HKG-SFO takes 2 hours less than SFO – HKG thanks to tailwinds.
FWIW, tt would have been just as accurate to say SFO-HKG takes two hours more due to headwinds.
Maybe they should go the other way!
That’s the same for any flight. West to East is always faster than East to West. I’m unsure if the reverse is true for flights below the Equator.
Would be interesting to know the cost differentials between the two routes
what about the effects of cosmic radiation for the crew and passengers while flying close to north pole?
Cosmic radiation is higher on polar routes. The early dose affects mostly flight attendants flying HEL-JPN routes. They may clock near max early hours + fly polar. Some may get to the max radiation dose limit.
Is cosmic radiation relevant nowadays when there is wi-fi and all the wireless gadgets onboard?
Yes, it is. Cosmic radiation includes particles / waves that have much higher potential to damage human cells (so-called ionising radiation). As I understand that is the main risk from certain types of radiation. WiFi and other gadgets emit radiation waves that do not have such high risk of damaging human cells.
After these flights i calculated the extra hour of fuel cost, but didn’t get around to calculate overflight fees. Did anyone do that? Still wondering wich was cheaper.
JAL 48 – flight time 13:20 and fuel consumption 11.4 tons/hour = 153.9 tons of kerosene
AY 61 – flight time 12:34 and fuel consumption 9.8 tons/hour = 123.2 tons of kerosene
30.7 tons of kerosene x 3.16 = 97 tons of CO2 less generated by FinnAir
B777-300 burns ~ 9 t fuel/hour !
😅🤣😂B777-300ER fuel capacity – 145 tons!
Yep..
181,280 liters
47,890 U.S. gallons
145.5 metric tonnes
A ton is 2000 lbs… Are you sure about this fuel being used? Like 300,000 lbs on way??
Lower cruise FL helps too
Fasinating results.
interesting
Airlines route for lowest total cost, not lowest total flight time.
Very interesting – what about the cost of the Overfly fees?
I travelled back to the UK from Cancun Mexico a few years ago and on the little screen I’m sure it said the gulfstream tailwind was circa 130mph and plane speed around 690/700mph. Surprised me. No idea what the plane was but one of the standard types.
But now I look and apparently the speed of sound at 35k-40k feet is circa 660mph! Bit weird. We certainly didn’t sonic boom.