On 19 August Northwest Airlines made the first scheduled commercial flight using one of the new routes through polar and Siberian airspace, using a Boeing 747-400. The first of its four weekly Detroit, USA-Beijing, China, flights took off at about 16:00 local time, flying the Polar 2 route which takes the aircraft within 100km (55nm) of the North Pole, then south over Russia's Lake Baikal and Mongolia to Beijing. The 13h flight, which is claimed by Northwest to be the first non-stop North America-Beijing service, is expected to take 45min less than present services, which use existing routes via Alaska and the northern Pacific.
Source: Flight International
