Canadian plane trips to Japan?

Question

Roughly how much would it cost? And what would be the flight pattern?

Answer 1

Cost could vary, A LOT, depending on if you fly during peak time (when everybody wants to go) or non-peak time, and depending on how far in advance you buy the ticket.

The flight pattern will roughly follow the Great Circle route, but constrained to the requirements of that day's traffic as well as staying within the maximum allowed distance from other airports (in case of emergency you don't want to be too far from an airport - look up ETOPS for more info).  You will go pretty far North.  For instance, when I flew Chicago-Tokyo, we went over Southern Alaska.

Here are the Great Circle Routes for both Vancouver-Tokyo and Toronto-Osaka:

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=YYZ-K...