Probably Miami to Cape Town, South Africa, which I think was around 15 hours. I’ve also done Los Angeles - Taipei, which is around 14 hours.
I just did one from Brisbane, Australia, to Los Angeles which was over 13 hours. That was part of a series of flights from Kimbe Bay on New Britain in Papua New Guinea to Panama that involved a total of 25 hours on planes. The whole trip, which included an overnight layover in Brisbane, took around 45 hours (although I arrived on the same date I left due to the International Date Line).
Tokyo to Detroit, about 13 hours. Then a couple hours layover before the hour flight to Montreal. But when we landed, it took us nearly an hour to get to the gate, running right behind the snowplow. So in all, about 17 hours.
Direct? JFK to Lahore. Just did that three weeks ago (my fifth time). 13 hours.
Longest was Islamabad to JFK, with a layover in Istanbul. 26 hours.
ETA: In the second flight got selected for secondary screening at immigration. Was doddering, one of the Immigration officers brought me coffee; I was surprised too.:eek:
Chicago to Shanghai, about 15 hours. Returning, Beijing to Chicago was only a little under 13 hours. It would’ve been unbearable if they didn’t fly me business class; on the flight over, my seat looked out into Economy, and even with the curtains closed I could see how miserable they all were.
The longest single leg was probably Milan-Boston which was especially bad because I had a sick toddler at the time that was making blood-curdling screams because of some type of gastrointestinal issue. This wasn’t your normal crying kid on a plane. She was screaming as loudly as she could for over an hour before I just took over one of the lavatories and kept her in there for the rest of the flight. Of course no one objected. I was stuck inside a veritable torture chamber but at least other people didn’t have to hear it as much. If you ever want to test whether you can be broken psychologically, that is a great way to find out. I had something like PTSD for a very long time afterwards and I am not exaggerating in the least.
The most nightmarish itinerary I have ever had shouldn’t have been one at all. It was a simple flight from Boston to Louisiana right before Christmas. To make a very long story short, everything that could go wrong did and it took 3 days and 6 cities to actually get there. It all started when Boston Logan was about to close because of weather so we asked to be sent absolutely anywhere else on any available seats. That got us to Chicago (First-class - things are going well so far but it won’t last) with an overnight stay in hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere followed by Atlanta, Miami, Memphis, Chicago again and then into Louisiana. As a bonus, they lost our luggage with all of our clothes and Christmas presents and they were never seen again. That extreme rerouting also somehow caused our return plane tickets to get cancelled so we had to pay a whole lot just to get back home.
Mine was only 8.5 hours, from Newark to Rome, but we spent 2 extra hours on the tarmac in Newark waiting to take off. So, 10.5 hours in that little seat.
Detroit>Chicago>L.A.>Sidney>Adelaide. It took approximately 634 hours, or so it seemed. On the return flight, I realized I locked my keys in the car.
Also did Detroit>Tokyo>Taipei. That one was only about 400 hours or so.
When I was ten years old my mom and I went with my dad on a business trip to Sydney. My ten-year-old self would have said the flight took three days :D, but my mom says it was actually about 14 hours.
San Antonio to Panama … forget how long … C-141’s aren’t built for comfort, goddamn jump seat was HARD … the plane was packed full of fucking ammunition …
Modesto, CA to Annapolis, MD in a Cessna 182 … not in one shot … and we crashed on the way back …
I think my longest would have been London Heathrow - Bangar Seri Begawan, Brunei, apparently 15-16 hours direct which actually surprises me, I didn’t remember it being that long, and I did actually have to deplane at Dubai (though not change planes, it was a literal get off, walk back through the gate and back on again, so I’m counting it as one flight).
It was the first leg heading to Sydney, but I don’t think I can count the whole week I spent in Borneo as part of the flight
I’ve flown from London Heathrow or Gatwick to Brunei, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Jakarta in Indonesia, plus KL to Auckland, and Brisbane to KL, all of which were 10 hour+, and all of which were in the cheap seats.
I’ve done a ton of flying, but all of it domestic. My longest flight was probably Detroit to L.A. Or maybe Detroit to Yakima, WA. I don’t remember which of those was longer. I do remember that during my flight to Yakima, my reason for being in Yakima was cancelled, so as soon as I de-planed, I was instructed by my boss to immediately book a return flight. So I hopped onto a plane from Yakima to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Detroit. That was a long day.
The two longest non-stop flights out of Houston are to Dubai (16:40) and Taipei (16:30) and I flew both of them last month. And, in fact, on both of them, I had connections on additional flights to further destinations (Addis Ababa and Brunei). Dubai-Houston is nearly polar, passing well to the north of Iceland.
My longest non-stop was Paris to Toronto (googling says about 8h). I seem to recall that as a teen my brother, father and I had a 23 hour trip from Ottawa to Costa Rica, but that was because we had (IIRC) 3 connections and a huge layover in Chicago.
I’ve done the Sydney-Los Angeles leg a bunch of times (and the other way, of course). It’s about 14h30m. Also Sydney-San Francisco, which is basically the same distance.
Other long legs include Tokyo-New York (about 14h), Singapore-London (about 14h), and Vancouver-Hong Kong (about 13h15m).
The longest i’ve sat on a plane without being able to get off was Singapore-London-Manchester.
We had the 14-hour leg from Singapore to London, and the plan was to land for a half-hour, offload passengers, and then take off for Manchester. Engine trouble, however, meant that wee sat on the tarmac for almost 4 hours. We ended up being on the plane for just under 19 hours.
And all of that came after a 9-hour flight from Brisbane to Singapore, with an 8-hour layover in Singapore. From take-off in Brisbane to landing in Manchester, it was 36 hours.
Last year I flew Tbilisi - Istanbul - Paris - Houston, with 12 hour layovers in both Istanbul and Paris. So I got up normal time in the morning in Tbilisi, my flight was 2 am, arrived Istanbul maybe 8 am, left 7 pm for Paris, arrived 10 pm, slept in CDG, left for Houston next morning after a three hour delay on the tarmac, arrived Houston about 4 pm. Greyhound home, arrived home 2 am. Two-AM here is about 9 AM Tbilisi time, so actual elapsed time with my socks on I think comes to a bit over 72 hours.
San Francisco to Auckland, 13 hours. This was preceded by a 2 hour flight from Seattle to San Francisco. The return home was an hour from Christchurch to Auckland, 13 hours Auckland to San Francisco and 2 hours San Francisco to Seattle, with only about a 40 minute wait between each flight.
