The Worlds longest flight is dead. Long live the Worlds Longest Flight!
A new king has been crowned! The Longest flight in the world is now Sydney (SYD) – Dallas (DFW) by Qantas – flight QF7.
The previous ‘King’ was Singapore Airlines’ Singapore (SIN) – Newark (EWR) flight – flight SQ22. Singapore Airlines ended this flight last week – November 23rd, 2013, ending an era and extra-long haul flights. SQ 22 came in at 9,534 miles. QF 7, in contrast, comes in at a mere 8,578 miles. Singapore Airlines had flown this route with a Airbus A340-500 in an all business class configuration. Unfortunately, it was not profitable for them and they ended this route. This also ended all non-stop Singapore – USA flights. Singapore Airline used to fly two non-stop routes. Other than SIN-EWR, it also operates Singapore (SIN) – Los Angeles (LAX), using an A340-500 too. That route was terminated earlier this month too. Singapore Airlines had operated both these routes since 2004.
Singapore – Los Angeles 03FEB04 – 20OCT13 (1 daily. SQ reduced service to 5 weekly from 01MAR09 to 30SEP10 and from 01MAY11 onwards)
Singapore – Newark 28JUN04 – 23NOV13 (Initially operates 1 daily. SQ reduced service to 5 weekly from 02APR09 to 18JAN10, 6 weekly from 01APR13 onwards)
(Courtesy: AirlineRoute.net)
I personally never had the opportunity to fly this route. The longest flight I have ever taken is Chicago (ORD) – Hong Kong (HKG) on United, which is 7,794 miles long. That route is also operated by Cathay Pacific.
Had you flown SQ23? How about QF7? What has been your longest flight? Leave a comment.
Related Posts
Subscribe to get updates via email. Subscribe to get updates via RSS.
The longest i’ve taken were the #7 JFK-HKG and #8 EWR-HKG ones by UA/CO and CX. There’s also #14 YYZ-HKG and #19 ORD-HKG.
I’ve never flown on the Middle East 3, so that precludes me from most of the list.
The longest flight I’ve been on is HKG-JFK/EWR on UA and CX. I’ll admit though that I prefer having a stopover rathan than flying a 14+ hour non-stop flight.
I flew QF7 SYD – DFL back in August of this year. I honestly had no idea that it was that close to the top of the list of longest flights in the world. That’s pretty cool though.
We had flown Thai Airways LAX-BKK round trip back in 2009, 17.5 hrs on the outbound and 16 hrs on the return, on our way to/from Indonesia. Fortunately, we were in Royal Silk/First Class, so seating, service, food, and entertainment options were great. While being on a plane that long certainly has drawbacks, it was nice to get to our destination a good 6-8 hrs earlier than we otherwise would have had to do, and we overall spent much less time both flying and waiting to board/pass through customs/security. Longer flights are burdensome, but they do provide big savings in time if they get you to where you want to go more directly. Hopefully, the 787 and future plane technologies will permit a few more lengthy longhaul flights to connect some of the most distant hubs–like SIN and LAX/SFO to more easily connect SE Asia and N. America.
LAX-HKG on CX, 7256 miles.
LAX-SIN and yes it was a really long flight… Especially since I had to catch a connecting flight to CEB. Anyway, service was amazing and food was solid. Slept for a solid 8+ hours straight and when I awoke, I still had another 7 hours to go. Trying not to go stir crazy was tough but between the food, movies and chatting with the flight attendants, I made it through.