Flying to Mexico
Thursday, 13 March 2014The wonders of flying ‘Great Circle’ routes never cease to amaze me. You fly between Australia and southern Africa (Jo’burg say) or southern South America (Buenos Aires) and a glance at the map and you think it’s straight across the Indian Ocean or the southern South Pacific. Oh no, instead you’re flying over ice and icebergs as you skirt Antarctica.
Ditto for flying between Northern Europe and the West Coast of North America – London to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles for example. The routing takes you way north over Greenland, northern Canada, Hudson Bay. It’s always a spectacular flight.
▲ But London to Cancun in Mexico? Yep, you’re over the ice and snow again. We crossed into Canada over the coast of Labrador, tracked down across Canada to the west of Toronto and east of Detroit and cross mostly frozen Lake Erie into the USA just west of Cleveland, Ohio. Then it’s south over Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia (east of Atlanta), Florida (near Tallahassee) and over the Gulf to Cancun.
