Evasive maneuvers because of the Ukraine war: On the way back from his visit to Japan, the Federal Chancellor ignores Russia and experiences something that is a rarity even for experienced pilots.
Across the North Pole from Tokyo to Berlin: Because of the war in Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave Russia a wide berth on his way back to Tokyo from his visit to Japan on Friday.
With the Airbus A350 “Kurt Schumacher”, the largest and most modern machine of the Bundeswehr flight readiness service, he even crossed the North Pole at 1:00 p.m. German time. The alternative route led from Japan first north via Alaska, then west across the Arctic Ocean and finally via Finland to Germany. After about 13 hours and 30 minutes and 12,319 flight kilometers, the plane landed in the evening at BER Airport in Schönefeld near Berlin.
The chancellor took about 1 hour and 20 minutes more than the direct route, which goes through China and then mostly through the vast empire of Russia. The airspace over Ukraine is closed because of the war, and western airlines avoid the airspace over Russia for safety reasons.
Exciting highlight
The flight over the North Pole is a rare highlight even for experienced pilots. “That’s exciting. These are things that you don’t do that often,” said the Luftwaffe’s flight captain, Michael Weyerer, who safely steered the chancellor to Berlin together with co-pilot Phillip Reipert. For Weyerer it was only the second North Pole crossing. In 2017 he flew the then Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle from Laos in Southeast Asia to New York. At that time, the shortest route was over the North Pole.
Scholz had already avoided Russia and Ukraine on the way there – but in the south. He crossed Poland, Romania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and China, among other places, and flew over the Black Sea, on the north coast of which is the Ukrainian war zone. At a good 13 hours, that also took significantly longer than the normal route.
Scholz stayed in Japan for just over 20 hours – less than the entire flight time. He met Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, attended an economic conference and concluded with a visit to a hydrogen plant on Friday morning. It was only his second long-distance trip as chancellor, following a visit to Washington in February.
Incidentally, Scholz relaxed again for the long flight: he wore jeans and a sweater, just like on his first long-haul flight to Washington. At the time, he received a lot of style criticism because the sweater seemed to be at least one size too big. This sweater fit him much better – and Scholz wore a shirt underneath.
Source: Stern
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