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Does the Air Canada flight from Ottawa, Ontario to London, England fly over the United States of America?

Is there any City in Europe that Air Canada flies to from Ottawa without flying over the United States?

Kate Gregory
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skyexpress
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    Welcome to TSE. You can find radar tracks of commercial flights on sites like flightaware.com, from which it appears that at least some recent nonstops do overfly the US. It's not clear why you want to avoid this, however. Flying through a country's airspace is different from stopping in the country; it imposes e.g. no visa requirements on the passenger. If you are a fugitive from justice for a serious crime or on the no-fly list, I'm not sure you would be allowed to board at YOW in the first place, considering the close US-Canada relationship. – choster Nov 29 '18 at 17:33
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    Air Canada's only European destinations from Ottawa are London (UK) and Frankfurt. Frankfurt is apparently seasonal and in any case the route is likely to be further south, if anything. – Nate Eldredge Nov 29 '18 at 19:51
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    @NateEldredge: Great circle routes are funny sometimes. – Michael Seifert Nov 29 '18 at 22:15
  • @MichaelSeifert I suspected as much. Thanks for looking into it. In fact, it seems that the great circle that connects FRA and LHR runs roughly through Miami, so for everywhere else in the US and Canada, the great circle to LHR is farther south than the one to FRA. Certainly most of my many flights between New York and Frankfurt have gone more or less over London, so I suspect in practice planes going from eastern Canada and the northeastern US will fly more or less the same route no matter whether they're going to one or the other. – phoog Nov 30 '18 at 02:37

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Ottawa-London: Probably enough for passenger overflight rules to be an issue. If you check AC888, it regularly overflies Maine. Also, it's not only overflight, but nearest suitable airport is also a concern.

WestJet flies from Halifax to London Gatwick. This is quite well east of the United States, but you'd have to confirm with WestJet if they will allow bookings by persons on a US no-fly list.

You'd also have to get to Halifax without overflying the US.

DTRT
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    Alternately, most airports further west in Canada would not routinely overfly the USA when flying to the UK; the great circle routes would go closer to the poles instead. I think Calgary & Vancouver both have non-stop service to LHR. – Michael Seifert Nov 29 '18 at 22:20