The World’s Longest Flights (and E book Them With Factors and Miles)

Spending 18 hours on an ultra-long-haul flight could sound like a grueling marathon to some, however to these with the correct mindset (and in the correct airline seat), it may be a gratifying journey.

Right here we’ll dig into eight of the longest flights on the planet by length, the routes they cowl and the planes that fly them, in addition to how you should utilize factors and miles to journey these longest flights in consolation.

What will we imply by “longest” flights?

Answering “What’s the longest flight on the planet?” is extra difficult than you would possibly assume.

The world’s longest flights are sometimes ranked by one thing known as the “nice circle distance,” which represents the shortest distance between two factors alongside the circumference of a sphere.

Nonetheless, the nice circle distance isn’t equal to the space a flight truly travels. Flight plans routinely change to accommodate for climate, wind and different elements, so a aircraft could exceed the nice circle distance on a given flight.

Moreover, the expertise of an ultra-long-haul flight is much less a product of how far you go than of how lengthy it takes. Thus, we’re highlighting the longest flights on the planet by length as an alternative of distance.

Moderately than depend on scheduled flight instances (which fluctuate for most of the identical causes as distance), we checked out historic flight knowledge to evaluate which flights truly final the longest from departure to arrival.

Whereas this record contains eight of the world’s longest flights, we left a couple of out for the sake of selection. You possibly can see what was excluded and why within the ‘honorable mentions’ record beneath.

An summary of the longest continuous flights

Let’s look nearer at every of those routes, together with suggestions for the way you should utilize journey rewards bank cards to e-book the journey on factors.

The longest flights on the planet

Serviced by one in every of Singapore Airways’ ultra-long-range A350-900 plane, flight SQ 21 tops our record because the longest continuous flight.

It’s so lengthy that the airline solely presents enterprise class and premium financial system seating — you gained’t discover common financial system seats onboard.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 9,534 miles; common journey distance of 10,644 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 18:50, common 18:18.

• Frequency: Day by day.

• Plane: Airbus A350-900.

• Typical flight path: Heading northeast from Newark, SQ 21 follows the coast to Newfoundland and crosses the Atlantic to Europe, passing the Alps and the Black Sea earlier than flying over the Center East, southern India, and the Bay of Bengal.

• Enjoyable details: SQ 21 crosses 13 time zones, and usually flies over greater than a dozen nations.

• Finest award redemption choices: E book one-way saver awards by way of the Singapore Airways KrisFlyer program for 80,500 miles in premium financial system or 111,500 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges). Singapore Airways is a switch associate of the foremost transferable forex applications, together with AmEx Membership Rewards, Capital One Enterprise Rewards, Chase Final Rewards® and Citi ThankYou Rewards.

This flight is numbered AI 176.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 8,701 miles; common journey distance of 9,737 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 17:50, common 17:51.

• Frequency: Thrice weekly.

• Plane: Boeing 777-200LR.

• Typical flight path: Heading north from San Francisco, AI 176 crosses Canada towards Greenland, ceaselessly getting into the Arctic Circle earlier than heading south over Scandinavia, Russia and Central Asia on the way in which to India.

• Enjoyable details: The return flight from Bengaluru to San Francisco (AI 175) has a mean flight time of 15 hours and 28 minutes, or practically two and a half hours lower than AI 176.

• Finest award redemption choices: You possibly can e-book one-way awards by way of the Air Canada Aeroplan program for 70,000 factors in financial system, 110,000 factors in enterprise class, or 140,000 factors in first-class (plus obligatory taxes and charges). Air Canada is a switch associate of AmEx Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One Enterprise Rewards and Chase Final Rewards®, so you may accumulate Aeroplan factors by transferring factors from these applications.

This journey’s flight quantity is SQ 23, and it doubles because the longest industrial flight at present in operation by nice circle measurements.

Like SQ 21 above, Singapore Airways solely presents enterprise class and premium financial system seats on this flight.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 9,537 miles; common journey distance 10,590 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 18:35, common 17:50.

• Frequency: Day by day.

• Plane: Airbus A350-900.

• Typical flight path: SQ 23 follows an almost an identical path to SQ 21 above, crossing Europe, the Center East and India.

• Enjoyable details: As a result of time adjustments and a night departure, SQ 23 lands two calendar days after it takes off. Nonetheless, the return flight from Singapore to New York (SQ 24) usually lands lower than six hours after take-off as measured by native instances on the origin and vacation spot.

• Finest award redemption choices: E book one-way saver awards by way of the Singapore Airways KrisFlyer program for 80,500 miles in premium financial system or 111,500 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges). Singapore Airways is a switch associate of AmEx Membership Rewards, Capital One Enterprise Rewards, Chase Final Rewards® and Citi ThankYou Rewards.

This flight, dubbed QF 9, spends greater than half of its flight size over the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 9,009 miles; common journey distance 9,171 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 17:45; common 17:43.

• Frequency: Day by day.

• Plane: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

• Typical flight path: QF 9 heads west from Perth over the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, ultimately crossing the Center East and Europe on the way in which to London.

• Enjoyable details: Of the flights on this record, QF 9 flies closest to its optimum geometric trajectory, with the typical distance flown exceeding the nice circle distance by lower than 2%.

• Finest award redemption choices: E book one-way awards by way of the American Airways AAdvantage program for 60,000 miles in financial system, 70,000 miles in premium financial system, or 85,000 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges). American Airways is a switch associate of Bilt Rewards.

At a latitude of 37.8136° S, Melbourne is probably the most southerly of all of the cities on this record (barely beating out Auckland at 36.8509° S.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 8,992 miles; common journey distance 9,249 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 17:50; common 17:34.

• Frequency: Thrice weekly.

• Plane: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

• Typical flight path: QF 22 heads west from Dallas, touring over the southwestern United States and typically northern Mexico earlier than spending nearly all of the flight over the Pacific Ocean.

• Enjoyable details: All passengers on Qantas have entry to a 24/7 snack bar.

• Finest award redemption choices: E book one-way awards by way of the American Airways AAdvantage program for 60,000 miles in financial system, 70,000 miles in premium financial system, or 85,000 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges). American Airways is a switch associate of Bilt Rewards.

Two Singapore Airways flight numbers — SQ 35 and SQ 37 — fly this route.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 8,770 miles; common journey distance 9,148 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 17:40; common 17:28.

• Frequency: SQ 37 flies each day; SQ 35 flies thrice weekly.

• Plane: Airbus A350-900.

• Typical flight path: These flights usually head west from Los Angeles, spending more often than not over the Pacific Ocean earlier than crossing the Philippines and Malaysia on method to Singapore. Nonetheless, some flights head northwest from Los Angeles, passing the Aleutian islands and the coast of Japan earlier than reaching the South China Sea.

• Enjoyable details: On days when each SQ 35 and SQ 37 fly, their scheduled departure instances are separated by lower than Three hours.

• Finest award redemption choices: E book one-way saver awards by way of the Singapore Airways KrisFlyer program for 75,000 miles in premium financial system or 107,000 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges).

Whereas this flight is just quantity seven on our record, it would really feel just like the world’s longest flight in line with your organic clock. Flight NZ 1 experiences the best time change.

• Flight distance: Nice circle 8,828 miles; common journey distance 9,109 miles.

• Flight time: Scheduled 18:00; common 17:26.

• Frequency: Thrice weekly.

• Plane: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

• Typical flight path: NZ 1 heads west or southwest from New York throughout america, typically additionally flying over components of Mexico earlier than spending the rest of the flight over the Pacific Ocean. 

• Enjoyable details: This flight usually arrives greater than 35 hours after departure as measured by native instances on the origin and vacation spot.

• Finest award redemption choices: As a member of the Star Alliance, you may e-book round-trip off-season awards by way of the ANA Mileage Membership program for 60,000 miles in financial system, 88,000 miles in premium financial system, or 105,000 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges). Common and excessive season charges are roughly 10-25% increased.

Whereas U.S. airways rank first (United Airways), second (American Airways) and fourth (Delta Air Traces) globally in complete locations served, UA 101 is the longest flight operated by a U.S. service (and the one such flight on this record).

• Flight distance: Nice circle 8.596 miles; common journey distance 8,895 miles

• Flight time: Scheduled 17:30; common 17:22

• Frequency: Day by day

• Plane: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner

• Typical flight path: UA 101 heads west from Houston, touring over the southwestern United States and typically northern Mexico earlier than spending nearly all of the flight over the Pacific Ocean.

• Enjoyable details: This flight crosses seven time zones.

• Finest award redemption choices: E book one-way awards by way of the United Airways MileagePlus program beginning at 37,500 miles in financial system, 70,000 miles in premium financial system, and 100,000 miles in enterprise class (plus obligatory taxes and charges).

These routes didn’t make the record, however just like the others above, they’re served by a number of the world’s longest industrial flights.

• Singapore (SIN) to New York-JFK: Singapore Airways flight SQ 24 (the aforementioned return flight of SQ 23) averages over 18 hours within the air — that’s lengthy sufficient to rank third on our record.

• San Francisco (SFO) to Singapore (SIN): Singapore Airways flights SQ 31 and SQ 33, and United Airways flight UA 829, provide continuous service between these cities. This route has an awesome circle distance a couple of hundred miles in need of the LAX-SIN flight mentioned above.

• Auckland (AKL) to Doha (DOH): Qatar Airways flight QA 921 flies this route with an awesome circle distance of over 9,000 miles and a mean flight time of simply over 17:20. An extended flight is a good excuse to e-book a Qsuite.

High playing cards for incomes factors and miles

Factors and miles will be redeemed for award flights, however earlier than you can begin utilizing them, you need to earn them. Past flying, one other strategy to amass numerous journey rewards is to earn a welcome bonus for a bank card.

There are trade-offs to spending on a normal journey bank card versus a co-branded airline bank card. If you happen to need extra flexibility to e-book throughout a number of manufacturers, follow a card that earn transferable currencies like Citi ThankYou Factors or Chase Final Rewards®. If you’re extra loyal to at least one model or alliance, contemplate an airline bank card.

This sum of factors can usually web you many round-trip flights.

The extra high-end (or ‘premium’) the journey bank card, the extra advantages you may take pleasure in, together with airport lounge entry or computerized elite standing in sure applications. That stated, a brand-specific airline card can web you advantages like waived baggage charges, which may have significant greenback worth.