Flight to TPE (Taipei) with a KLM B777-200

✈️ Flight Overview

Very interesting flight again since a tropical storm “WIPHA” lead us to re-route our flight approaching Taiwan via Hong Kong (the west) to approaching from Seoul (the north).

🌏 Airspace Restrictions

You should know, for context, foreign-registered aircraft such as ourselves are not allowed to operate to TPE overflying mainland China, unless it is via Hong Kong airspace. In case you are wondering, also Hong Kong is under the authority of China. Flights between Taiwan and China are reserved for Chinese and Taiwanese carriers exclusively.

This means that if you want to approach TPE from another direction, it will have to be from the north, through Korea’s airspace. So this became a binary situation. Furthermore, to re-route this flight, a 3 hour period was needed in order to attain the correct permits, meaning we had to decide in advance and would then be committed to our choice.

🌪️ Option 1 – Via Hong Kong

Option 1, the picture above, flying over Hong Kong (optimal, standard route), with tropical storm WIPHA south of our path. We get accurate information on tropical storms from the “Tropical Cyclone Advisory Center”. This route was within planning limits for us. Deviating to the north from our airway (J101) to avoid weather, possibly entering Chinese airspace, may not be allowed if we are to continue to Taiwan.

Chinese ATC does not have a reputation for being very flexible in normal operations. You could use a “MayDay” call if you required immediate assistance and flexibility, but you would have some explaining to do to Chinese authorities why you issued a MayDay call while not being in immediate danger (they might argue, you might argue differently). It’s a gray area. These kind of situations are better considered in advance.

🧭 Option 2 – Via Korea (Chosen Route)

Option 2, what we flew, is to approach TPE from the north, so via Korea, clear of weather so weather avoidance into restricted Chinese airspace (for this route) is not an issue. The price: longer flight time of 10 minutes. This was a small price to pay for the safe option we thought, hence we chose this option. We were able to shave-off most of it with the help of some direct routings from ATC.

✨ Final Note

We had an uneventful flight. It is quite interesting how politics factors into decision making in aviation. I hope you enjoy.

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