Cathay Pacific to operate world's longest flight by rerouting its New York-Hong Kong route to avoid Russian airspace

I made the EWR-HKG run 5-8 times per year for a long time. Went a lot of different routes, but never remember one over Europe. Canada, AK, Pacific rim, Japan common non polar trip. 747-4 and 777-200. It would seem that the "rim" route would put diversion airports only available in Russia.

Yes, I agree. Great circle routes are often difficult to envisage, but from that view it would seem more practical to head NE across Canada, skirting Russia around Vladivostok and down along the edge of Japan to Hong Kong. An international pilot may be able to tell us why this isn't feasible, but I suspect it doesn't correlate with existing approved international flightpaths.

Gosh! Another claim to the "world's longest flight"! How can Cathay's rerouting of between 16 and 17 hours even get close to this? Singapore Airlines already had New York to Singapore at over 18 hours. Qatar Airways Auckland to Doha over 18 hours. Then there is Qantas Perth to London, Emirates Auckland to Dubai, Singapore Airlines LA and San Francisco to Singapore, United Houston to Sydney, Qantas Dallas to Sydney, United San Francisco to Bangalore and soon Air New Zealand New York to Auckland, all clocking in between 17 and 18 hours.

This doesn't seem to make sense as it would be quicker to go the other way - across the Pacific.

Longest flight in earth's history is sitting next to Rosie O'Donnell in business class as she picks her hooves and chews on Buffalo jerky singing along to Justin Beiber on her iPad. I literally tried to light myself aflame with hand santetizer

Correction: NW to SE, not NE to SW.

Taken this flight in both directions many times. Route KG varied significantly each time but always crossed some Russian airspace, either from NE to SW or more N to S.