What route do airliners take when flying between Europe and Oceania?

[Frank N. O.]

I was just using Google Earth to measure how far it is from Denmark to respectively Eastern Australia and New Zealand and then I noticed the direct line goes right thrue such places as Afghanistan, Pakistan and right on the border of Iran. There's no way civilian passengerplanes actually fly that route is there?
On a side-note then British Airways charges no more for a ticket to Sydney than they do to Los Angeles or San Francisco from Denmark although somehow I think the trip down under is a lot longer.

Frank

[ZK Kiwi]

The most common route from Europe is Westbound via Los Angeles (via the north Pole Great circle route) then direct to either Auckland / Christchurch or Sydney / Brisbane ? Mebourne. Being great circle routes they dont follow straight lines on maps. heading Eastbound european flights now generally stage via Dubai and /or  Singapore. In the days of shorter range Jets there were stops at Bombay or Karchi and for a while Beirut. Longer range airliners have significantly changed how the routes are flown. It is possible for an A340 to fly Paris - Auckland Non stop via the North Pole route (as done in 1993 during the Paris airshow) and return within 48hrs - really hard on the pax though!

[ZK Kiwi]

Try this handy little gizmo - a great circle Mapper:

load in FRA-SIN-AKL (Frankfurt to Auckland via Singapore)
also see FRA-LAX- AKL and the routes shown will be reasonably accurate.

[Frank N. O.]

Thanks for the answer, interesting, it's a long flight but I guess it makes sense since there are several potentially dangerous places that needs to be overflown when going eastbound.
That being said then it would almost make sense to also do a short stop in USA if the flight Down Under goes right across that anyway.

Btw, what gadget are you talking about? I don't quite anything? I can enter the three airports in FSX' flight planner and see the route that way.

Frank