This is what earplugs are for. Even when babies aren’t crying in your vicinity, earplugs are great for blocking out the noise from the engines and the slipstream (and the occasional ridiculously loud announcements from the flight crew via the speaker directly over your head). I’ve flown many times between Detroit and Nagoya (~14 hrs), and I always make sure I have earplugs with me.
If you don’t fill the tanks full of fuel, you can load more cargo - as long as you have enough to make it to the destination airport of couse -
Conversely, if you have significant cost in breaking the journey only to load the same passangers back and and taking off again, why not avoid taking extra cargo and just do it in one hop rather than two ? Its got to cost a heap in fuel, and staff costs, and airport fees (profits to airport owners ?? privatisation… ) etc to land and take off again ??
So the new Boeings , 787, are the quietest wide bodies, and the most fuel efficient, per ton mile . They save fuel costs on any trip of any length. They save airport costs by taking more passengers per plane. So they are going to be used across continents and across oceans everywhere, not just Australasia toward Europe.
What I am getting at is that the planes used for these long distance flights aren’t developled ONLY for these longest distance flights. Sure they are developed for long distance flights, but that means across continent or ocean size spans. Singapore to Tokyo . LA to NYC. that sort of thing. Thats mostly what they are for.
And then some are used for these record breaking distances.
In the past the Boeing 747’s that could fly long distances had signfiicant differences to the regular. Eg totally different engine models in the 747ER. So its not really a huge difference, its just getting an old model of body with a newer engine… But they have to be orderedl ike that, retrofitting the engine back to an older plane isn’t worth it. ( … most 747’s are end of life now.) I think the cargo thing meant that the long range flight isn’t great … most airplines want to fill the plane with cargo and take it across the local continent… So it usually paid to have a stop over.
As it turns out, London to Sydney, Qantas flight, is almost going from London to its antipodes, as so is going from Doha to Auckland on Qatar Air, so the two are setting the record at just over 9000 miles which can’t be beaten by any great %.
Something nobody has addressed: how on earth do the flight crews survive such a trip? Do they have a bunk or two somewhere so they can catch a nap?
My wife and I did the round trip between JFK and SVO (Moscow) three times in the course of adopting the Firebug. Google says it takes 10 hours westbound, but a mere 9 hours 10 minutes eastbound. No big deal, of course, compared to some of the flight times in this thread.
Cool - never knew that!
Thanks Isilder. Much to ponder.
QANTAS has just ordered $2 bazillion worth of Dreamliners to replace its 747s.
I heard an interview with its CEO Alan Joyce on Australian ABC’s Science Show. The science angle was that he’s a mathematician and came into airline executive management through bean counting (and presumably then being able to find the square root etc). One line he had that i remember was something along the lines of ’ there is nothing in the world with less value than an empty seat on a plane thats taken off.’
Here’s CNN Money on Qantas’s new Perth-to-London nonstop route, and the retirement of its six 747s earlier than expected: Qantas will retire its Boeing 747 fleet earlier than planned
Singapore to Newark is back - 18 hours 45 minutes
Here’s CNN Travel on the Singapore-to-Newark nonstops, including an interesting short video on the new seats: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-new-york-worlds-longest-nonstop-flight/index.html
New seats. Ha! Pussies. Nineteen hours is what I used to sit on the regular, non-air-conditioned bus from Bangkok to Mae Hong Son in Thailand. No fancy seats. Just the bench kind, with a slight padding. One time I read afterward about a small earthquake that occurred in the North in the wee hours while the bus was passing through, but the vehicle was jouncing so much, there would have been no way to feel an earthquake. New seats indeed.
Yep, I did that one too. The return trip was worse, closer to 20 hours, due to strong Atlantic winds.
Luxury!
Ha! Those guys were lucky!
I’m really not exaggerating though. Mae Hong Son is so remote and mountainous that in Peace Corps, whenever we had to go to Bangkok for a meeting or more shots or whatever, those of us in that northwesternmost province were allowed to fly to Chiang Mai, the northern capital, on the government’s dime and then continue overland to Bangkok by bus or train. That made us the only Volunteers in country allowed to fly at government expense. The flight from Mae Hong Son town to Chiang Mai is 35 minutes, but the bus takess 8-9 hours. (Nowadays they have van service that shaves a couple hours off.) Arriving in Bangkok, we would turn our travel receipts in to the Peace Corps office, and they would just give us double the amount to cover the return trip. Being young and in Bangkok, I would then use that to party hardy, then take the non-air-con Orange Crush, as it was affectionately known for obvious reasons, for the scheduled 19-hour journey. It cost a couple or three bucks American. Being a young lad, I could take it. Would not want to try it today!
Bumped.
An update on the Singapore-to-Newark nonstop route, which starts today: MSN
Nineteen hours, and if that’s not bad enough, when you get off you’re in Newark.
Your fellow passengers will make a big difference. My brother flew from Perth to London via Nairobi and found himself on a flight full of a victorious England Rugby team and their supporters. They drank the plane dry… Twice.
I dunno. After 19+ hours in a flying tin can, even Newark would look pretty good!
Here’s someone who flew in the inaugural flight, SQ21 Newark-Singapore, in Premium Economy, (17:21, scheduled for 19 hours): World's LONGEST FLIGHT in Premium ECONOMY on Singapore Airlines - YouTube
Even in the back of the plane, they treat you pretty well. Plus if you book early enough or are lucky enough, you can get solo seats in economy.