Ask the pilot

From the farthest north to the deepest south, no degree of latitude is left unexplored. Also, the pilot seeks a showdown with one of the world's most fearless journalists.

By Patrick Smith

Read more: Technology & Business, Airplanes, Airlines, Business, Airports, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

Feb. 4, 2005 | "Carrasco is served by American and United Airlines, making Montevideo second only to Melbourne, Australia, as the most southerly destination in the world visited by any U.S. carrier."

Carrasco is the airport for Montevideo, Uruguay, and the preceding statement, seen in this space a week ago, pulled in several disputations. E-mailers argue that nearby Buenos Aires rests more southerly than Montevideo and therefore deserves runner-up honors after Melbourne.

My hunch is that such claims are based on a cursory glance at a typical wall map, ensnaring us in yet another great-circle trap.

Picture the globe, and let's excerpt that section of the sphere containing Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The two cities, about 125 miles apart, sit relatively close to the bottom of the planet, where vertical lines of longitude begin to squeeze together. Flattening this area into a grid map causes it to bend, stretch or warp, giving a tweaked representation of the cities' bearings from each other. On both maps that hang in this apartment -- a Rand McNally employing Mercator projection, and a Michelin using Van der Grinten -- Buenos Aires indeed appears south of the Uruguayan capital.

Which it is not. According to Dorling Kindersley's 1999 Millennium Edition World Atlas, the city center coordinates for Buenos Aires are 34 degrees, 40 minutes south latitude (34° 40' S). Across the Rio de la Plata, Montevideo's numbers are 34 degrees, 55 minutes (34° 55' S).

What does that mean? Demarcations of latitude -- the cartographically challenged may envision horizontal stripes or bands encircling the globe -- begin at the equator (zero degrees, zero minutes), and from there proceed north or south. Unlike the east-west measurements of longitude, which must meet at the poles, those of latitude do not converge, meaning the distances represented by north-south degrees and minutes (and seconds too), remain constant over the earth's surface. A degree of latitude is always equal to 60 nautical miles. One minute -- a sixtieth of a degree -- is 1 mile. (A second, if we had reason to be so picky, is a sixtieth of a minute, or slightly more than a hundred feet.)

Thus the difference between Buenos Aires and Montevideo is 15 minutes, or 15 miles. It's very close, and any city's urban sprawl may sneak its overall mass one way or the other, but officially Montevideo sits slightly farther from the equator. According to World Aerodata.com, the coordinates for Ezeiza, Buenos Aires' main airport, are 34° 49' S. Aeropuerto Internacional del Carrasco, on the other hand, occupies 34° 50' S. Airport to airport, the difference is only a mile.

Either way Montevideo remains, as stated, the second-most-southerly place visited by scheduled U.S. passenger flights -- those of American and United Airlines.

In first place is Melbourne, Australia, situated at 37° 49' S. Previous second-place went to Auckland, New Zealand, at 36° 53' S, until United ceased flying there, opting instead for a code-share arrangement with Star Alliance partner Air New Zealand. Sydney, by the way, is found at 33° 55' S, a scant 60 miles north of Montevideo, and 75 from Buenos Aires.

Fascinating, no? And with all this in mind, you're doubtless wondering about that other half of the world -- that upper hemisphere we've so rudely neglected. Which is the most northerly destination of a U.S. carrier?

The answer depends on whether we're talking domestic or international. The spoiler is the state of Alaska, whose namesake airline flies to the Arctic outposts of Barrow and Prudhoe Bay. Barrow is the all-out winner, at a whopping 71 degrees and 16 minutes north latitude (71° 16' N). Putting that in perspective, Barrow is nearly twice the distance from the equator as Montevideo (though it's a shorter travel distance from, say, New York, since the entire North American landmass is well above the earth's middle).

Elsewhere the honor goes to Continental Airlines' service to Oslo, Norway (60° 11' N), followed by Delta's daily departure to Moscow (55° 45' N). I'm loath to add freighters into the mix, but I'll mention that Reykjavik, Iceland, is on the UPS map. Reykjavik is considerably higher than Oslo, though a good deal south of Barrow.

(About five years ago I flew a cargo charter from Göteborg, Sweden, to Sondrestrom, Greenland. Tucked into the rocky heel of a fjord, just over the Arctic Circle -- about 66° N -- Sondrestrom stands as the Pilot's most northerly turf-touching. The routing, I remember, took us directly over Iceland, affording a grand midday view of the famous Vatnajökull glacier.)

Let us not, despite the temptation, open the competition of northerly extremes to any and all airlines throughout the world. To do so would find us caught amid the logistical complexities -- routes that are semi-scheduled, seasonal, etc. -- of the numerous ex-Aeroflot directorates serving arctic Siberia, and those of assorted carriers plying into far northern Canada and Greenland.

Down south, however, it's easier. With Antarctica out of the picture (no scheduled airline service, as reviewed here last fall,) the sole geographic focus becomes Tierra del Fuego. Aerolineas Argentinas and Chilean carrier Lan are among those flying to Ushuaia, nearing 55° S at the tip of Cape Horn.

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