Originally Posted by
dixi188
The great circle from Alaska to Qatar goes almost over the North Pole slightly on the Russian side. I don't think an Asian routing would be very easy as there are not many USA friendly air bases. Coming via the UK gives lots of alternates if things go wrong.
Yep, great circle route ain't going to happen going over Russia, and so they'd have to route via Japan or Phillipines to also skirt around China, so a quick check shows going west would likely mean a 10,000 miles routing, whereas coming east via UK, is around 8000 miles, so significantly shorter, with many more friendly diversion options along the way.