International flights across the world and across the continents will eventually resume back to their full potential,

but whenever they do, there will probably still be a critical missing link.

Normally, there are transcontinental flights every single day that connect North America, Europe, Africa and Australia to every other inhabited continent in the world.

But there still isn't a single direct commercial flight being offered from Asia to South America,

and there never has been either.

Even after the covid crisis is over,

the only way from one continent to the other is through a series of convoluted connecting flights that will take you to another continent first

and likely take you over 24 hours to complete.

So what gives?

South America is home to 424 million people, or about 5% of the human species,

while Asia is home to 4.56 billion people or about 58% of the human population.

Asia's population is over 10 times greater than South America's,

and it's rapidly becoming the world's center of trade and business.

China is already the largest single aviation market in the world,

with Japan, Indonesia, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea all in the top 10 as well.

The Asia Pacific region is already the busiest airspace in the world.

And based on a report from the IATA,

the top 10 largest airline markets among emerging economies will feature eight in the Asia Pacific and two in the Latin American regions.

It should almost be a no brainer than to have flights connecting these two rapidly emerging global regions together.

But so far, very little progress has actually been made.

Pre covid, only four Latin American countries maintain flights to the Asia Pacific region,

Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Brazil.

These four countries collectively maintained 22 weekly flights to either China, Japan or South Korea, and most of them had layovers.

Hainan Airlines has a route from Beijing to Mexico City with a layover in Tijuana,

China Southern has a similar route with a layover in Vancouver that's set to be discontinued,

while Air China has flights to Cuba with a layover in Montreal,

another one to Panama with a layover in Houston

and another one to Sao Paulo with a layover in Madrid.

While Aeromexico has direct flights from Mexico City to Tokyo and Seoul, that's pretty much it.

And the only direct flights go into or out of Mexico, not South America.

The two primary reasons for why that's the case are geography and technology.

Geographically speaking, Latin America in general is the furthest global region away from Asia.

And South America, specifically, is quite literally the furthest place away from Asia that you could get to on Earth.

South America and Asia are essentially antipodes, meaning that they exist on opposite sides of the planet.

Based on this map, you can see that Argentina and Chile are roughly opposite of Mongolia and China.

Taiwan is opposite of Paraguay.

The Philippines are on the other side of Brazil, while Indonesia is opposite of Colombia and Venezuela.

You can also see that Mexico is the closest Latin American country to Asia,

which helps to explain why it's the gateway to Latin America from Asia.

To put it into even greater perspective,

Beijing is the busiest airport in Asia, while Sao Paulo is the busiest airport in South America.

Connecting these two hugely busy hubs with one another through a direct flight would make perfect sense,

except for when you begin to consider how expensive and difficult it would actually be.

For starters, the distance between the two airports is 10,934 miles, which is a lot.

Currently, the longest commercial flight is the one between Singapore and Newark

that takes 18 hours and 25 minutes to complete and covers a distance of only 8285 miles.

A flight from Beijing to Sao Paulo would below that one out of the water,

and it's not even really clear if it would be technically feasible right now, anyway.

The plane that Singapore Airlines uses to fly the current longest route to Newark is an Airbus A350-900 ultra long range,

which only has a maximum range of 9700 miles.

That means that if a carrier were to use this plane for a Beijing to Sao Paulo route,

they would need to stop somewhere to refuel, which adds more cost.

The shortest route would also take the plane over a significant chunk of Russia,

who is well known to charge exorbitant fees for the privilege.

All of these factors combined dramatically increase the price of a hypothetical flight between these two big cities,

which is pretty much why no such flight presently exists, but there is some progress being made.

Last year in 2019, Qantas achieved the world record for the longest flight ever taken by a commercial jet aircraft.

They flew a Boeing 787-9 from New York City to Sydney nonstop over 19 hours and a distance of 10,066 miles.

But Qantas did a lot to this flight to make it more possible.

Passenger and baggage loads were both restricted in order to control weight.

So there were only 49 people on board that flight, including all of the passengers and crew.

And it still wasn't enough to cover a reasonable flight between two major airports in Asia and South America.

So that's effectively why no direct flights exist between the two continents,

they are too far away, the technology to fly that far without refueling isn't there yet, and the infrastructure in a lot of places is simply lacking.

Maybe one day a flight like this will exist.

But until then, just like with any other goal, it's helpful to identify the problems you'll face and learn how to work towards the solution.