The longest flight in the world

[kerouac2]

Singapore Airlines has just relaunched its service between Singapore and New York after abandoning it about 10 years ago.  This article makes it seem totally bearable (except for the fare, I'm sure).

Longest flight in the world

As for myself, the longest nonstop flight I ever took was Hong Kong to Vancouver.  What about the rest of you?

[onlyMark]

About ten and a half hours I think. Frankfurt to Windhoek.

[mossie]

About the same, or a bit longer. Gatwick to Las Vegas, which I did three times. One trip I reaised they were going well north and asked to go up front as I was curious as to how they navigated, knowing the usualbeacon system does not cover that area. I spent about an hour with the crew because they were still using the good old “by guess and by God” system that I had been taught 50 years before.

[questa]

I don't have statistics but the 3 flights that seemed to go on forever were Malaysia to Denmark, Bangkok to Casablanca and Melbourne to Istanbul. Of course it takes 7 hours to go from Melbourne to the western edge of Australia where the air routes leave the country. Those hours seem more tedious than any others.

[bjd]

Having done two trans-Atlantic flights in one week, I realize how much I dislike airplanes and airports. I can't believe that when I was about 16, a few of us would pile into a friend's car and go to the airport to watch planes take off, dreaming of travelling. As it turns out, I was the only one of the four of us who ever did travel.

My longest flight was to Santiago, Chile, with stops in Paris and Buenos Aires. 15 hours.

I also did 2 24-hour train trips from Paris to Warsaw back in the old days. When I arrived in Warsaw I went to see how much it would cost to fly back but I couldn't afford it. That was long before cheap flights within Europe.

[kerouac2]

I took a train from Paris to Lisbon in 1971. That was 27 hours.

[questa]

I still get a buzz around airports, specially the huge Asian new ones. Maybe I'll have my ashes scattered at Changi Singapore. It has been the gateway for many of my greatest travels....or KLIA in Malaysia. I know that I will have long stop-overs from time to time, 23 hours in one place, but I take my knitting, people watch, read up on my destination history and culture etc. I find I can't get into a novel unless it is about my itinerary countries. The rest of the world doesn't exist when I am in travel mode.

The train from St Petersburg to Beijing via Mongolia I can't count as there were 1 or 2 day breaks in major cities. For me the longest train trip was from Kashgar in the far west of China to Shanghai via Urumqi. The distance for this was 5604 km and the time was 63 hours.

[mickthecactus]

You’re a serious traveller questa!

[questa]

Was, Mick, was. Now I just look at maps and plan expeditions to the few places that still interest me. Kamchatka looks interesting but I would have to go with a group. I'm getting too decrepit to keep up with one. I would also like to see North Korea but they wouldn't let me in because my hair does not pass one of the 17 approved styles for women that are permitted. (when I travel I have a #2 buzz cut all over. It confuses people...?army, police, Buddhist nun? anyway I don't get hassled like other women do)
I guess I have one more trip left, then "I'll go no more a-roving"...one of the saddest poems I've ever read.

[kerouac2]

I think my longest multi-stop plane-changing trip was Yogyakarta-Jakarta-Jeddah-New York-Tampa. I know there were two complete nights on the planes -- between Jakarta and Jeddah and then again between Jeddah and New York. It was much the same back when I took flights like Tokyo-Anchorage-London-Paris. Thank god for the long range planes now. Even though 12 or 13 hours seems unbearable, it is a lot more bearable than 18 or 20 hours in the past.  However, I am not against one stop on the way.  I very much liked the 90-minute stop in Dubai on Vietnam Airlines for the Paris-Hanoi flight, but now that it is nonstop, it is less appealing.

[onlyMark]

I remember driving from London to Capetown to Nairobi to Cairo and finish in Kathmandu.
That was 9400 hours (approx fifty six weeks, 52,000km).
Mind you, I was a week late so I only had a week in Kathmandu before I drove back from there to Capetown.

[lugg]

My longest non stop flights are all about 11.5 hours - Uk to San Diego, Thailand and SA. But that is only in terms of miles and hours - my longest flight recently was very short - Carcassonne to East Midlands - peanuts in terms of distance and hours but the longest in terms of "I want to get off this plane now ..." Not at all pleasant in Storm Callum landed sideways and for the first time ever I understood the need to applaud the pilot - x1 aborted landing and a long pause before a pilot announcement of what would happen next. I understand from friends that it made the TV on news but its not something I have any inclination to search for.

[kerouac2]

I had fun in Santa Barbara once when the pilot announced "we're going to circle to control tower because we're not sure if the landing gear is down."

[questa]

Derelict Russian version of a Fokker Friendship...4000 feet over Mandalay, Burma....thick fog... flying in circles for 50 minutes waiting for said fog to lift so we could land...how much fuel do these things carry?...cabin crew, two young girls, handing out lollies, look a bit worried...Go to the toilet, note how some of the fixtures and fittings have been repaired with duct tape...Fog cleared enough to land.
Welcome to Mandalay.

[questa]

Another memorable flight was when I was working in outback S Australia. I would fly in either an 8 or 16 seat light plane that served the US Air Force base, opal fields and large uranium mine. We would leave about 6am for the 2 hour flight.

This day we took off in the 8 seater... The single pilot, 6 huge US guys. a mining manager and me. About half way into the flight, about 8-9000 feet, the dude in the front seat said to the pilot,"Do you know the door isn't closed properly?" The pilot used a few well-chosen words to indicate he had not known and radio-ed back to Adelaide for instructions to nearest air strip. This turned out to be over the tip of Spencer Gulf, but as we had no life jackets on board we had to fly around the Gulf to get to the small airport.

The airport was deserted and locked. The men started working out to fix the door. The first latch was OK but the second safety latch was flapping in the breeze. "We need a hammer to straighten this bit," so we all set out looking for one.The mine manager found a length of galvanised water pipe with a chunky elbow on one end.

As the men were thumping the latch, a car and a police car rolled up. I strolled over (dressed in my uniform) to explain why the USAF was belting a small plane with a piece of pipe. The airport boss had been having recent problems with vandals so called the police. Nice guy...opened the building and made us all a cup of tea.

With the door now airworthy we took off and arrived safely. I have great respect for little aircraft,,,those babes are tough.



Check out "Red Sand Dreaming" in the Oceania board for pics of this area.

[amboseli]

Amsterdam to Cape Town, 11:20 hrs non-stop ; Amsterdam to Colombo, 12:15 hrs with a stop in Abu Dhabi.

[bixaorellana]

Supposedly the airlines offering the super long-haul flights are eager to offer passengers amenities to make it all more bearable. We shall see.

www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/travel/long-haul-flights-amenities.html

[rikita]

longest flight i don't know. longest time on a plane was from india to belgium - i think the flight itself was supposed to be something like ten hours already, and then there was some technical problem so we landed in ankara but weren't allowed to leave the plain for the six hours they repaired it ... they only had dinner (served the previous evening during flight) and breakfast in the plane, the breakfast was served shortly after arriving in ankara, then nothing until arrival, so we were starving. they gave us vouchers there and we spend them on huge amounts of fast food, and ended up feeling quite sick ...

[bixaorellana]

I think there is some kind of rule -- maybe even a law -- that imposes a limit on how long passengers can be kept in a plane on the ground. It is definitely less than six hours,

[kerouac2]

Each airline and each country has different rules, and they are rarely respected. As a former airline employee, I can say that according to French law, and also the rules of the airline I worked for, the rules had to be respected... except in case of force majeure. And that basically means that none of the rules apply.

I do remember that I barely escaped Montréal once during a period of frozen rain. They de-iced the plane and then again and again, but the cargo door was frozen and wouldn't close. We waited for hours. Finally we managed to leave. One of the flight attendants told me (since as airline staff I am often told things that the general public should not know) that we were within 20 minutes of flight cancellation due to the maximum duty time of staff on a Montréal-Paris flight.

[questa]

When I was researching my Zanzibar trip I learned that if I spent more than 12 hours in a Yellow Fever country lay over, I would have to be immunized for it.

[rikita]

i think it had to do with turkish rules that we couldn't leave the plane. not sure if it was also the reason they couldn't get extra food (well, that might have had to do with that the airline we took did not actually fly from that specific airport, normally, so they had no representation there) ...

[kerouac2]

I saw somebody complaining about Alitalia once, when their plane had to land for a few hours at a disused military airfield in the middle of the Egyptian desert while waiting for the fog to lift in Cairo. "They didn't give us anything and there were no Alitalia staff to meet the plane!" Gee, I wonder why.

[rikita]

well, they could just have staff camping at random places all over the world, just in case one of their planes has an emergency landing there ...

[onlyMark]

It happened a few times at Cairo, especially during the Khamsin and when the farmers were burning the fields in the north.