The Most Valuable Airspace in the World

Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

Music: "Organic Foundation" by Niklas Gustavsson "Fouh" by Twelwe, "My Luck" by Broke For Free, and "Namaste" by Audionautix

Big thanks to Patreon supporters: James McIntosh, Braam Snyman, Harry Hendel, KyQuaan Phong, M, Robin Pulkkinen, Sheldon Zhao, Kenneth Johnson, Nader Farsan, Juan Rodriguez, James Hughes, Ken Lee, Victor Zimmer, Dylan Benson, Etienne Dechamps, James Prior, Qui Le, Chris Barker, Andrew J Thom, Keith Bopp, Alec M Watson, Chris Allen, John & Becki Johnston, Connor J Smith, Arkadiy Kulev, Eyal Matsliah, Joseph Bull, Hank Green, Plinnio Correa

[jonfr]

This flight path is suddenly becoming relevant again in the world.

[MR.ALFE]

My mother is a former Iberia cabin crew and she was destined to live in Anchorage for two years to cover the routes from Madrid to Tokyo via Alaska. Airlines were paying a lot of money for those going to live abroad! Thanks to that, my mum could afford to pay almost cash down for the house we're living in nowadays!

[deanchur]

One of the perks of being in Australia.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to drive up the road to get some milk, will be back in 6 hours.

[SuperVt]

The power of real estate: location, location, location.

[richardweil]

Took the flight from Chicago to Beijing. Truly exciting to see the northern Canadian islands, the North Pole, all of Siberia. And while I stayed glued to the window everyone else slept, read and watched movies. Their loss. It was weird to leave at night, see the day over the ice cap, switch hemispheres and land in darkness again.

[jugostran]

*BREAKING NEWS*
Ryanair camouflages their planes to look like Russian planes to avoid paying

[noooddle]

Before the fall of the USSR, I worked for an oil company. We use to sell a heck of a lot of jet fuel in anchorage. It was amazing how it changed.

[danielwebb]

Alaska; the only US state that didn't want the ussr to fall 😂

[ДжекИтальянец]

Well its 2022 and I think Anchorage is back in business baby

[gilangbayurakasiwi]

4 years later, Siberian airspace will be exclusively limited to the Mainland Chinese airlines since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but no more for Hong Kong, South Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese carriers whose they still have European destinations, because they just imposed a huge ban on the Russian travel.

[MPPelli]

A historical sidenote regarding the Finnair route (at 4:00): the reason Finnair flew the long way round in 1983 was not because of the Soviets, but the Japanese. The Finns actually had permission to use Soviet airspace, but the Japanese wouldn't have given permission to land in Tokyo if Finnair flew the direct route. Apparently this was a move to protect Japan's flag carrier airline JAL's own European routes.

[simonsimonovic]

And what if Russia never sold Alaska to America ...

[darraghtate]

It's amazing how good the former Soviet Union have gotten at exploiting capitalism.

[maxschardt]

lemme sum up the whole vid. SAS ruins everything for Norweigan

[margs_aviation]

Anchorage is a best example of radiator springs 😢

[goytabr]

Nearly all countries charge overflight fees, they're just usually not as selective as Russia. And two more things: first, they often block planes from unfriendly countries - no Israeli planes can overfly most Arab countries and vice versa, for example, Qatari planes are banned from several other Arab countries, and no planes from Taiwan can overfly mainland China (there is an exception for direct flights to mainland Chinese airports, which are limited). And there are many other examples.

Second, the U.S. controls air traffic in vast areas of oceanic airspace, even in international waters and some other countries' airspace (e.g., Micronesia, which controls a huge area of the Pacific Ocean) - and it charges for overflights not only of its own territory, but for overflying air traffic CONTROLLED areas. So, a flight from Japan to New Zealand, or from the UK to the Bahamas, must pay U.S. overflight fees, even though it doesn't overfly American territory or territorial waters. This is even worse than the Russian fees in many cases.

[FutureNow]

In Soviet Russia, airspace value you.

[BringTheRains]

We should have an update of this video since Russia closed its airspace again.

[foolroblox]

Wendover: Russia geography sucks
Also Wendover: Russia geopolitics are important

[simonpeter]

"Useless frozen tundra" they said. Hah!