The world’s longest flights: Ultra-long haul flying takes off – but is the UK being left behind?

The long-discussed non-stop from London to Perth is still not off the ground, but Auckland, LA and the UAE are spoiled for long-distance links

Auckland, destination for the world’s longest flight

As 2017 shapes up to be the year for new ultra-long air routes, Britain could find itself sidelined – with the vast majority of the most distant links involving the Gulf, the US and Australasia.

Last week, Air India claimed it had launched the world’s longest flight – though this was purely thanks to its choice of routing. The mileages quoted by airlines are for the “Great Circle” route, the shortest distance between the two cities. In practice, the actual distance flown is significantly longer for reasons of geo-political sensitivity or, more usually, wind patterns.

For example, the direct track between Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi passes north of Greenland and close to the North Pole, but typically the Etihad flight stays well south, adding 500 miles or more to the 8,387-mile Great Circle route.

Air India has two very different routings between Delhi and San Francisco to take advantage of the jet stream. Outbound from the Indian capital, the flight goes across the Pacific; inbound, it flies the more direct route over Atlantic. As a result, the Delhi-San Francisco leg often exceeds 9,000 miles, compared with the 7,701-mile direct track.

At present the two most distant cities linked by a non-stop flight are Dubai and Auckland, 8,824 miles apart. Emirates flies the Airbus A380, the world’s biggest passenger jet, daily between the two cities. The journey takes 16 hours and 5 minutes eastbound and 17h 25m westbound.

From 1 February next year, its rival Qatar Airways will also fly non-stop to New Zealand’s largest city. As the Qatari capital is over 200 miles further away, the new Doha to Auckland link will take the prize. The scheduled journey time is only five minutes longer, as the Boeing 777 to be used for the route has a slightly faster cruising speed.

At present the longest route from Britain is 7,275 miles, in the shape of the Garuda link from Heathrow to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. The longest hop on a UK airline is 6,906 miles on British Airways from Heathrow to Buenos Aires. From January, BA will add a non-stop flight from Heathrow to the Chilean capital, Santiago, 7,249 miles away. But this is well short of the distances covered by the top 10 routes globally.

Eight of the longest 10 links begin or end in the US, and seven start or finish in the Gulf. Three serve Australasia (two to Auckland, one to Sydney). Europe and Asia are unrepresented, with Africa represented only by Johannesburg.

Longest 10 air routes by Great Circle route from February 2017

Route	Airline	Distance (miles)
Doha-Auckland	Qatar Airways	9,036
Dubai-Auckland	Emirates	8,824
Dallas-Sydney	Qantas	8,578
Johannesburg-Atlanta	Delta	8,439
Singapore-San Francisco	Singapore Airlines/United	8,434
Abu Dhabi-Los Angeles	Etihad	8,387
Dubai-Los Angeles	Emirates	8,333
Jeddah-Los Angeles	Saudia	8,332
Doha-Los Angeles	Qatar Airways	8,306
Dubai-Houston	Emirates	8,168

As The Independent revealed a year ago, Qantas is considering the first non-stop flight between Europe and Australia, with a link connecting London and Perth. Such a route would become the second-longest worldwide, with a direct distance of 8,991 miles. But the Australian airline is guarded about the possibility. Markus Svensson, the carrier’s regional general manager in the UK, says: “Potential routes include the likes of Perth-London and Melbourne-Dallas, but Qantas haven’t confirmed anything yet.”

The Independent understands significant hurdles have emerged to such a pioneering link – involving the airports at each end. The Australian airline will launch the flight only if it can arrive and depart from the Qantas domestic facility at Perth. The carrier believes the route will be viable only with easy onward connections to destinations such as Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin. At present Perth airport’s international terminal is on the “wrong” side of the runway, 15 minutes’ drive away. Qantas is demanding that international facilities are installed on its side of the airport.

At the London end, Qantas has fewer slots at Heathrow than it used to hold, and would need to acquire more at a time when prices are extremely high. It is conceivable that Gatwick, where more space is available, could be used instead – though this would reduce connection opportunities to and from the Western Australia flight.

Qantas says it is also considering three new Australia-US flights, holding out the prospect of links between Melbourne and Dallas or Sydney and Chicago. The strongest candidate is Sydney-Chicago: it would connect Australia’s biggest city with the third-largest in the US, and would have plenty of connecting traffic at either end of the route. At 9,238 miles, it would become the longest in the world – until 2018, at least, when Singapore Airlines has vowed to re-launch non-stop flights between Singapore and New York. This 9,521-mile link launched in 2004, but closed three years ago when the fuel-heavy A340-500 made it uneconomic. The carrier says it will use a much more efficient A350-900ULR for the reinstated route.

Ultra-long-haul flights are extremely expensive to operate, and depend on relatively cheap oil for profitability. They burn a disproportionate amount of fuel per mile, because of the volume that needs to loaded to sustain the journey, and demand heavy crew resources. The Singapore-New York link operated with six pilots.

Several ultra-long-haul routes have been touted but failed to materialise. Emirates announced last year it would launch a Dubai-Panama City flight of 8,588 miles, and even started selling tickets for it, but the plan was shelved. Qatar Airways promised a link from its hub in Doha to Santiago in Chile, 8,967 miles away, but there is no sign of services beginning.

Click here to view our latest travel offers with Independent Holidays