There are some 68,000 commercial air routes around the world that connect up to 10,000 different airports. A large part of these air connections are in major cities, notably in the eastern United States, East Asia and above all, … everything, in Europe.
However, There are almost no flights over Antarcticadespite increasingly advanced technology in aviation. A curious fact which arouses great interest and which an airplane pilot wanted to explain.
In a video posted on her TikTok account (@maritarx), where she has more than a million followers, Marita wanted to explain the reasons why there are practically no commercial flights crossing the frozen continent. “You may be wondering, ‘What if we went back to the North Pole, Why don’t we fly over the South Pole?‘”, he begins by saying.
The reason there are no flights across Antarctica
The airline pilot explains that there are almost no commercial flights flying over Antarctica for various reasons. The first of them is related to the thickness of the atmosphere. “The layers of the atmosphere are not the same across the entire planet. Due to the rotation of the planet, in the equatorial part they are thicker than in the polar part,” explains Marita.
The thickness of the atmosphere has a direct effect on human health, since it is responsible for protecting us from solar radiation. “If planes cross the troposphere, but it is very thin, we will receive more radiation», Explains the ‘tiktoker’.
In fact, Marita explains, throughout her life, An airplane pilot ‘receives more radiation than a person working in a nuclear power plant’. “We have to take this into account and try not to expose pilots to radiation,” he says.
The second factor that explains why there are no commercial flights flying over the South Pole is that “airplanes and ice are very bad friends, especially fuel” and, in the event of a setback, “there are no emergency airports”.
“We need to understand that the land masses of our planet are almost all on the same side of the planet. The Pacific, for example, covers half the planet,” the pilot continues, explaining that in Antarctica “flights are avoided because there are no towers to be in contact with humans.” If something happens, it’s not that no one is there, it’s that no one finds out.“.
Furthermore, Marita warns: “The same thing, from Argentina to Australia, flying over Antarctica is a super fast flightbut it’s not going to be comfortable, it’s going to be turbulent“. And, he explains, it is one of the most extreme climatic zones on the planet: “No company is going to commit to doing a route there.”
Despite all the inconveniences associated with flying over this point on the planet, the pilot of the plane emphasizes that it’s not illegal do it. However, such theft will require paying a fairly high sum. “There is private companies that, for the low price of 15,000 euros“They take you for a walk,” he said.
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