Читать книгу Geography For Dummies - Jerry T. Mitchell - Страница 70

Figures 4-2 and 4-3 provide different perspectives on air routes between New York City and Singapore. While this may seem a strictly academic exercise, airlines that compete on long-range international itineraries take the matter very seriously. There’s an old saying: “Time is money.” And for that reason, many business travelers (if they have a choice) prefer the shortest route to get them where they’re going. Airline executives know this. Accordingly, marketing strategies sometimes involve making maps that present the airline’s route system in the best light possible. And doing that, of course, involves choosing the best possible projection.

If you have a globe handy, you can determine the shorter of the two itineraries from New York City to Singapore. Get a string, pull it taut, and place it on the map so that the string connects New York City and Singapore. What you observe is that the string passes over the Arctic Circle and shows that a stopover in Helsinki is a minor detour, but a stopover in Rome is a major detour. If you don’t have a globe, you can’t do this demonstration, can you?