Rhonda Bracey: At Random

First up, Perth to London on Qantas is one of the longest direct flights in the world at around 17.5 hours. Add in 2 hours to drive to Perth, check-in 3 hours beforehand, and before you know it, you’re up to nearly a full day.

Our flight path was a little off the usual course last night. According to the flight map, we did a few little zig zags and I figured there were some strategic decisions made as to where we went. And so it was.

At one point about 2 hours before landing, I was waiting to go to the forward loo. The captain (1 of 4 pilots on board) was making a strong coffee and I commented about the route. He said that they had made some late changes because Iran had fired missiles into Israel. Of course we knew none of this as we were 15 or more hours into the fight and had no connection with the outside world.

If you check the map below, you’ll notice a slight change of course at the Arabian Peninsula, then we crossed into Egypt near the Suez Canal, then we skirted the bottom of Greece and followed the Adriatic Sea until we got to northern Italy and crossed into Europe. (At one point, this flight used to go over the Middle East and Ukraine, but the Ukraine path stopped several years ago.)