Qantas has announced intentions to operate the world’s longest commercial flight by the end of 2025, transporting passengers between Sydney and London in just over 19 hours on Airbus A350s.
Only a few airlines operate non-stop across such huge distances, posing a slew of problems to jet performance, commercial feasibility, and even crew and passenger health.
The following are some of the world’s longest flights:
Singapore to New York: 18 hrs 40 min
Singapore Airlines Flight SQ24 to New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport is now the world’s longest commercial flight, covering more than 15,000 kilometers (9,300 miles) using Airbus A350-900s.
It also operates the second-longest flight — Flight SQ22, also using A350-900s, which is slated to take 18 hours and 25 minutes to reach Newark in the US state of New Jersey.
Qantas will operate Sydney-London flights using the A350-1000 version.
Darwin to London – 17 hrs 55 min
Qantas’s longest current route, QF9, connects Darwin in northern Australia to London on a daily basis, with passengers flying nearly 14,000 kilometers on Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Originally scheduled to fly between London and the western city of Perth, the flights were relocated to Darwin due to Australia’s Covid-related travel restrictions.
Qantas has announced that it will restart its service between Perth and London this year.
Los Angeles to Singapore – More than 17 hrs
Singapore Airlines Flight SQ35 flies passengers over 14,000 kilometers over the Pacific Ocean in 17 hours and 10 minutes from Los Angeles on the US West Coast to the Asian city-state.
The airline’s journey from San Francisco to Singapore is anticipated to take 16 hours and 40 minutes.
New York-Hong Kong in 16-17 hrs?
Cathay Pacific said in March that it was going to change its New York-Hong Kong route so that it would go over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific Ocean. This would make the journey longer than Singapore Airlines Flight SQ24 to JFK.
Air France says the flight path will cover “just under 9,000 nautical miles” (10,357 miles) in 16 to 17 hours.
It didn’t say why its flight path didn’t go through Russia’s airspace, which it has done before.
Many airlines have stopped flying to Russian cities or haven’t flown over Russian airspace because of Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
“Strong seasonal tailwinds” led Cathay Pacific to make the decision. The new route would have been better because of this.