The race is on amongst the world’s leading airlines to see who will take the title of the world’s longest flight. We’re not quite at the 24-hour flight yet, but that looks to be on the horizon.
This year Emirates took the title away from Qantas, launching two flights over 17 hours: Auckland to Dubai and Dubai to Panama City.
The Dubai to Panama City service by Emirates travels 13,821 kilometres (17 hours and 35 minutes) without stopping, beating Qantas’ 13,804 kilometres record.
Qantas has held the title of the world’s longest route since 2011 when it launched its Sydney to Dallas service, opening up the USA’s southern states for thousands of Aussies.
But Emirates won’t be holding onto this title for too long, not if Qatar has anything to do with it.
Although this hasn’t exactly been confirmed, there is some talk around Qatar launching a Doha to Auckland service (in addition to a Doha to Santiago service) later this year, usurping the title from its Middle Eastern neighbour and smashing all previous records out of the park by cracking the 18 hour flight time barrier.
However, again, this hasn’t yet been confirmed.
Whatever the case, it appears that these Middle Eastern airlines will have the spotlight thrust away from them come 2018 when Singapore Airlines is expected to launch a 19-hour non-stop flight from Singapore to New York on one of its Airbus A350.
From then on, a non-stop 24-hour flight from say Melbourne to London may soon become a reality.
Qantas, the Flying Kangaroo, operated the world’s longest commercial flight between Perth and Colombo back in 1943.
Back then, it took over 28 hours, and seated just three passengers on a tiny Catalina aircraft travelling at 200km/h.