Almost 19 hours. To be precise, 18 hours and 45 minutes sitting on a plane, non-stop and non-stop. This is the duration of the longest direct flight in the world, announced by Singapore Airlines: starting from Thursday 11 October, it connects the Asian city-state to New York, via a new Airbus model A350-900 ULR. The previous record, beaten by over an hour, was held by the flight between Doha, Qatar, and Auckland, New Zealand, offered by Qatar Airways and completed in 17 hours and 40 minutes.
The Singapore-New York route, which the Asian company had already planned in 2013 only to then abandon the project due to the high cost of oil at that time, measures 16.700 km as the crow flies, more than the diameter of the Earth itself (12.742 km) and almost half of the circumference of the planet, which is about 40.000 km. A great challenge also for Airbus: the European manufacturer, with its stable of long-haul aircraft, has won six of the ten longest routes in the last four years.
According to Airbus, the A350-900 ULR can do even better: it can travel 18.000 km non-stop and without refuelling, which corresponds to more than 20 flight hours. In fact, the tank contains an additional 24.000 liters of kerosene, i.e. a total of 165.000 liters of total capacity. In addition, the carbon-fiber frame allows for lower fuel consumption than a normal aircraft of that size (-25%, claims the company).
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Given the monstrous duration of the flight, Singapore Airlines wants at least to offer the most comfortable experience possible to its customers: this is why there is no Economy class on the Singapore-New York flight, but a 67-seat Business Class and a 94-seat Premium Economy. Recent technologies also allow, through the LED lighting system of the rooms, to fade the light according to the time of day, in order to reduce the inconvenience of jet lag for passengers. The same passengers can also customize the use of the air conditioning. And then the inevitable films: the Asian company offers 1.200 hours of films and programmes.
The challenge has been launched and is already about to be taken up: the Australian company Qantas, probably using a plane from its rival Boeing, is already thinking about a non-stop flight lasting more than 20 hours to be launched by 2022. It will connect New York and Sydney (16.000 km ) or even London and Sydney (17.000 km).
