Pacific flight to Asia?

[CAflyer]

Why don't flights go from the West coast to Asia? Seems like it would be a much shorter flight. Is it because there is no land for so long and the flights require a diversion landing area in case something goes wrong? I know you can fly strait to Tahiti from the west coast and that is 8 hours...where would you divert on that flight?

[MathFox]

Why don't flights go from the West coast to Asia? Seems like it would be a much shorter flight. Is it because there is no land for so long and the flights require a diversion landing area in case something goes wrong? I know you can fly strait to Tahiti from the west coast and that is 8 hours...where would you divert on that flight?

The Earth is a sphere and the shortest way along the surface between two points on the surface is along a "great circle". This shortest route shows up as a curve on most maps.
A nice tool to plot those magic routes is the "Great Circle mapper" http://gc.kls2.com/ if you select one or two "ETOPS" times, it shows you circles around diversion airports along the route.

[Dachiri]

Late, as always. Yes, Mathfox is correct that it is quicker to go WAAAAYYYYY up north and come down somewhere like Chicago than go to the West Coast. Consider that it takes just over 15 hours to fly from Hong Kong to Chicago, and just under 15 hours to fly from New York to Hong Kong (goes straight up over the North Pole), and just over 12 hours to go from DC to Beijing (again, over the North Pole), and just under 11 to go from Shanghai to San Fran. You can fly from the West Coast to Asia (United has flights available from LAX and SFO to all major China destinations), but it's actually a bit less travel time if you're not on the West Coast to pick a direct from the East Coast or something with a Midwest stop-off.