Indirect flight path

Senecio

Recently flew from Dublin to Hyderabad with Etihad via Abu Dhabi. When we landed our flight path was flashed up on screen and I took a photo of as I thought it was a little unusual to take such an indirect path hugging the coastline. Anyone know why we would have taken this path?

Irish Steve

Could have been any or all of the following.

Overflight rights, where an airline may or may not have permission to cross a specific country
Weather avoidance
Air traffic control congestion meaning a direct routing was not available
Avoiding an area of military conflict.

Gaoth Laidir

"Distance travelled 15,358 km"

That sure must have been an indirect route!

L1011

Non ETOPS routing would make sense if it wasn't so ludicrously indirect.

eatmyshorts

Avoiding slot restrictions through Muscat airspace and the airways in Mumbai FIR over the Arabian Sea.

Arabian Sea Airspace

Foggy43

More than likely slot restrictions. An example is on rare occasions a flight from LHR to SNN has to route LHR, BHX, MAN, LPL, DUB, SNN.

Also one notes the OP's flight routed close to the other Hyderabad east of Karachi. I wonder what route planner was being used

Senecio

Thanks all for the feedback. As I said I was just curious, particularly the first section up the coast of the UAE and over the Musandam peninsula of Oman. I wasn't sure if this flight always takes this route, we did depart and arrive on time. I've flown to Hyderabad a number times with Emirates but this was the first time I had flown with Etihad.

Gaoth Laidir

So why did it say it travelled over 15,000 km?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.