World's longest flights - UK Guardian newspaper article, map

[Phil Bunch]

My personal record is about 16 hours, on a flight from KLAX to NZAA on Air New Zealand.  About half-way through the night flight I began to peacefully hallucinate - it felt like I had been on the flight forever.  Something about the blue night lighting seemed to stimulate or aggravate my distress, too.  Auckland was a welcome sight in the early morning (local time).

I believe my personal record city-to-city elapsed time was about 40 hours, mostly because of poor connections, from Sydney to Rochester, NY (western part of the state).  The multi-flight route was Sydney-Los Angeles-Washington DC-Rochester.  "You can't get there from here" was my slogan for that effort!

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/could-you-endure-the-worlds-longest-nonstop-flight-find-out-whos-king-of-the-long-haul/2016/05/26/bd0dadc2-0357-11e6-b823-707c79ce3504_story.html

Excerpt:

As long flights go, Singapore Airlines' epic almost-19-hour, 9,534-mile journey from Newark to Singapore was once the ­standard-bearer against which all others were measured. But the all-business-class Flight 21 was scrubbed in 2013, some nine years after its first voyage in 2004. The airline had sold its ultra-long-range A340-500 aircraft, and no other in its fleet was capable of connecting Singapore and the New York area on a nonstop basis.

Today, two airlines share the distinction of the world's longest nonstop flight, according to air-travel intelligence analysts OAG. It's a tie between Emirates Flight 449 from Dubai to Auckland, New Zealand, and Air India from San Francisco to New Delhi. Both clock in at 17 hours and 15 minutes, though the Dubai-Auckland mileage is considerably longer — 8,819 miles compared with 7,690.

A slightly longer flight on Emirates from Dubai to Panama City at 17 hours and 35 minutes was scheduled to begin in February but has been delayed until later this year or early 2017.

In any case, Singapore Airlines will once again one-up its long-haul competitors when it resumes nonstop service from New York to Singapore in 2018, as it announced last fall. That's when the airline will take delivery of the first of seven A350-900 ultra-long-range aircraft, with service to begin shortly after delivery.

Expected flying time will again be between 18 and 19 hours, depending on factors such as wind speed and other weather conditions.

[Jeroen D]

My personal record is Newark - Delhi vv several times a few years back. Somewhere between 15-16 hours and I absolutely hated it. We lived in Kansas City at the time so add another 5-6 hours to get through immigration and the leg to/from KC.

I don't mind flying as such, but anything over 8 hours isn't really for humans as far as I'm concerned.

Jeroen

[DougSnow]

My personal record is 14+22 on a RJAA-LFPG B777F a few years ago on a cockpit jumpseat ride.  The longest leg on this year's ride in Sept/Oct is 13+20 KMEM-RJAA on a B777F.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Finally I can add something so I feel I belong a bit with the Big Boys  \o/

The 15+ trip Honolulu-Guam UA154 isn't a nonstop though. It is a six-hop. But you are pretty much confined to the aircraft plus 30 meters circular.

The complete trip is tough, MIA-IAH-HNL-(...)-GUM is a drag no matter what you do between the islands.


Hoppie

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Qantas seems to be set to take over the record.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38280722

Passengers will be able to fly from London to Australia non-stop for the first time when airline Qantas launches its new service from March 2018.

Australia's national carrier says it will connect Perth, in the west of the country, to the UK capital using Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.

The 9,000 mile (14,498km) flight will take 17 hours.

I wonder why Perth. The blurb talks about tourism, but I don't think the Eastern Australians want to do a layover in Perth just to go on to London?!

Great circle EGLL-YPPH: 14498.563 km
Great circle EGLL-YSSY: 17014.977 km

Just too far...? And a nice excuse made up to still claim a direct England-Australia flight?

It is interesting that if you fly halfway across the globe, you still can have 2,500 km extra distance to go between two cities in the same country!


Hoppie

[kiek]

It is interesting that if you fly halfway across the globe, you still can have 2,500 km extra distance to go between two cities in the same country!

For Dutchmen indeed hard to imagine. The longest flight I made in our country was Rotterdam - Groningen  (approx 200 km)

Nico

[Holger Wende]

I recently ready about the apparently shortest international scheduled flight 

The flight connects the Airports Friedrichshafen (Germany, EDNY) and St. Gallen-Altenrhein (Switzerland, LSZR). It's operated by the Austrian airline "People's Viennaline" using an Embraer 145 Jet.
Distance: 21 km, flight time is 8 minutes.
Price about 40 Euro one way.

(Link German only: http://www.peoples.ch/)

Regards, Holger

Edit: Longest non-stop flights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-stop_flight#Longest_flights

[Will]

With my old company, the shortest hop we had was KSTL to KSPI. I did it once in 18 minutes flight time (but 45 minutes gate-to-gate).

[Phil Bunch]

<I recently ready about the apparently shortest international scheduled flight >

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Amazing!  I wouldn't have guessed that such a short flight exists!

I think that very short flights exist in the US, generally created as part of the "spoke-and-hub" commuter airliner systems. 

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Some additional residual memories:

The most annoying short flight I took, some years ago before I retired, was from somewhere in the Southeast USA back to my home town in western NY state.  The flight was the only way to get home within several days, due to overbooked flights, so I flew about 6 very short flight legs from one small town to another.  After I think about 8-10 hours of multiple short flights in small commuter planes I was very glad to get home!  The cost of this adventure was fairly high but my company paid for it since my services were needed back at the company's headquarters.

I also recall that one of the flight legs (at night, with rain) included a segment where the small commuter plane flew around in some sort of quasi-circular pattern while the pilot looked for the rotating light beacon that identified the airport for incoming traffic.  My residual memory tells me that the rotating light beacon looked more like a search light, aimed parallel with the ground.   This memory seems suspiciously like 1950s movies that show an airport with a rotating light beacon.  Is my memory realistic or is it unconsciously based on watching too many 1950s movies???

Did 1950s airports routinely feature rotating light beacons???  Some lighthouses on US ocean coastlines still include rotating searchlights to help ships avoid dangerous coastlines, etc.  These are common in Maine, where I live, although I have wondered if this isn't partly to support tourism - people love to have their photographs taken in front of old lighthouses.

[cavaricooper]

Phil-

Still present at every US airport. The flash pattern distinguishes civilian or military airfields.

Best- C

[Will]

Still present! The rotating beacon is aimed just a little bit upwards, something like 8º or so, so that pilots on approach can see it but not, generally, pilots directly overhead.


In addition to distinguishing military of civilian airports, they can also distinguish normal land airports, heliports, and sea plane landing strips.


In the old days they beacons rotated, so the perception of "flashes" was given by having a succession of colored lights rotating together. I wonder if anyone has replaced them with actual flashing lights? You could get the same effect with flashing omnidirectional LED's.


I used to hear about people back in the day climbing on top of the beacon at rural airports, usually while intoxicated, and sitting upon it to hitch a ride round-and-round.

[jtsjc1]

Isn't 9000mi out of the range of the 787-9? That seems more like a flight for a 77W.