Hi, I arrived in London on flight SQ306 yesterday. I fly quite frequently back and forth to Singapore from London (and onwards), perhaps 5-6 times a year for the last 7/8 years. During yesterdays flight I fell asleep over the Bay of Bengal and woke up expecting to find myself over Afghanistan (for some reason I alway wake up there), but when I looked out of the window I saw to my right water and an unfamiliar island close to a mainland. I switched on the inflight map and (it confirmed) I was actually over the persian gulf, I think the island I had seen was Kish. I looked on flightaware and this confirmed the routing (although it shows the flight path slightly to the north of where I can visually testify that we we actually were at that point..)
FlightAware
I'm a fairly keen follower of the inflight map and in what must have been something like 62 trips on this route, this is the first time the plane had skipped 'the stan's' Pakistan, Afghanistan etc and routed to the south, along the Iranian southern border then up between Iran and Iraq towards northern Europe, if I have interpreted the above link correctly, the route took us almost 1000 statute miles further than the direct route. Any theories as to why?
I have heard that historically this route has - at times - been the norm, but not on any of my flights - until now.
I've also noted in the past, the SIN-LHR flights (following typical routes) do a kind of 'dog-leg' course change over Afghanistan, I've always assumed to miss military controlled airspace, can anyone confirm my thinking on that?
Be interested to hear the views of those familiar with the route...