Airlines expand with launch of new long-haul flight routes
LONDON: 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 launched the world’s longest flight – though this was purely thanks to its choice of route.
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 geopolitical 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 Great Circle route.
Air India has two very different routes 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 direct track.
Dubai and Auckland two most distant cities linked by a non-stop flight
At present the two most distant cities linked by a non-stop flight are Dubai and Auckland, 8 824 miles apart.
Emirates lies the Airbus A380, the world’s biggest passenger jet, daily between the two cities.
The journey takes 16 hours, 5 minutes eastbound and 17 hours, 25 minutes westbound.
From February 1 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 by Johannesburg only.