I thought it was a local flight too.

Last year when countries started closing their borders, Air Tahiti had to reroute their Papeete-Los Angeles-Paris flight via Pointe-a-Pitre.

It was a French Polynesia to French Caribbean to France flight.

I wonder if that's because Guadeloupe isn't part of the Schengen Zone and so has passport control for arrivals from elsewhere in France.

None of the overseas territories are part of Schengen. They rerouted there because another airline (French Bee / Air Caraïbes) doing CDG -> PPT has a base there.

They’re doing it trough Vancouver now that they know the Canadian government won’t cancel their flights at the last minute ;-)

Isn't French Guiana France proper? I always see it marked alongside the Schengen zones.

Yes, French Guiana is as much part of France as Hawaii is part of the USA. They use the Euro, and any EU citizen can move there for work, study or just to live (if they have the money to support themselves).

However, it's not part of Schengen. The usual benefit -- no queues at the borders -- is pretty limited, when it doesn't border any other EU state, and anyone from the EU must arrive by air or sea anyway.

Since it is part of the EU, crossing the border is less-strict for an EU citizen: an identity card is acceptable, and there's less ability for people to be detained by border guards.

> The usual benefit -- no queues at the borders -- is pretty limited, when it doesn't border any other EU state, and anyone from the EU must arrive by air or sea anyway.

Well, that's never stopped Metropolitan France from creating queues at air-mode borders anyway.

Source: Flew from Brussels&Frankfurt and still got border controlled at Toulouse multiple times. Some bullshit about it being "temporary for 1 year" with endless renewals and no

I am more surprised that MCO/SJU route (Orlando to San Juan, Puerto Rico) is listed as international too.

I am quite certain that is a domestic route, at least for immigration purposes. Perhaps the airline industry differentiates territories as international for some reason.

Yes that’s a domestic route, seems like a mistake in the reporting.

The ISO country codes are different though (FR and GP), the heuristics may be based on that ?

Yeah, among the busiest "international" routes are:

* France - France (Overseas region and department),

* Russia - Russia (annexed region),

* USA - USA (commonwealth),

* China (People's Republic of) - China (Republic of)

Goes to show that the notion of "nation" has fuzzy borders.

Also, Cario-Jeddah and Cario-Riyadh are formerly Ottoman Empire. Seoul-Tokyo is briefly part of Japanese Empire. The only "true" international routes left are Dubai-London and New York-Santiago

How can you actually equate Cairo - Jeddah and Cairo - Riyadh as remnants of the Ottoman Empire? This has got to be the most ridiculous assertion I've read on this site.

Those routes are busy simply because there are a number of Egyptian expats working in KSA who travel back home for vacations and/or family events and stuff. Apart from that, Cairo and Riyadh are as international as you can get apart from the language - they speak different dialects of Arabic, they have different views on religion, they have extremely different cultures, and they call each other's food shit.

Both parts (Arabia and Egypt) were ruled by their respective dynasties for almost a half millennia, far longer than Ottoman rule.

I don't know why there's a lot of traffic between Seoul and Tokyo, but it's certainly not because the former was briefly ruled from the latter. Comparing these examples to the Russian and French examples is laughable.

> Goes to show that the notion of "nation" has fuzzy borders.

Or that these aren't nations but empires pretending to be nations.

that was good one!

Moscow - Simferopol isn't international either.

The UN doesn't recognize the annexation of Crimea, so that's probably why.

I doubt that the OAG goes by UN definitions or membership (otherwise the flight from China to Taiwan would be considered domestic?)

Neither is Kosovo.

do they recognize Taiwan?

I doubt that...