Non-stop flight
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A non-stop flight in the aviation industry refers to any flight which does not involve any intermediate stops. Many laymen mistakenly assume that a "direct flight" is similar to a "non-stop flight". An ultra-long-haul non-stop flight is generally considered to be roughly 13,000 km or greater in route length and at least 15 hours in duration, with no intermediate stop-over point. Four ultra-long-haul flights exist, between SIN/BKK and LAX/EWR. Singapore Airlines has an enhanced economy class in place of regular economy class to help passengers cope with the long stretches of time. Most regular long-haul transpacific and Europe-Asia flights typically last about 12+ hours over 9,000+ km.
Most of the world's longest non-stop scheduled commercial flights involve trans-continental journeys, generally to Southeast Asia such as Singapore and Bangkok, and some parts of East Asia such as Hong Kong, via either the great circle route or the polar route. Singapore Airlines was the first to introduce these ultra-long-haul flights to Southeast Asia on 3 February 2004 [1] and 28 June 2004 [2], operating two of the world's longest non-stop city pairs, while Thai Airways International launched its own flights from Bangkok later, marketing them as the "fastest to Southeast Asia" (although this is because they are shorter routes).
The five longest non-stop city-pairs in the world are operated by several airlines, namely Singapore Airlines (Los Angeles-Singapore and Newark-Singapore), Thai Airways International (Los Angeles-Bangkok and New York-JFK-Bangkok) and Cathay Pacific (New York-Hong Kong).Currently, the flight from Newark to Singapore is the longest non-stop flight in the world. The flight from New York (JFK or Newark) to Hong Kong is the longest non-stop flight in the world to have more than one daily flight, and to be served by more than one airline.
[edit] Longest non-stop flights
The following lists the world's longest non-stop scheduled passenger routes in distance order. City-pairs may be served utilising diffferent routings on the return journey, which may therefore involve different route lengths. Different weather conditions, particularly the direction of jet streams , also have a significant impact on the time needed to complete the journey. For example, Singapore Airline's flights from Singapore to Newark follow a 15,700km great circle route, while its return flight is a 16,600km polar route over the north pole. The Singapore - Los Angeles route takes about 16 hours to complete, but takes about 18.5 hours on the return trip [3].
* Before 29 October 2006, the flight numbers for these 2 routes was SQ20 (SIN-LAX)/SQ19 (LAX-SIN)
On 11 November 2005, Boeing successfully flew a Boeing 777-200LR from Hong Kong to London via the Pacific Ocean, over a distance of 21,601 km and a flight time of 22 hours 42 minutes. It broke the previous record of the longest non-stop flight by a jet aircraft [4], held by a Boeing B-52 bomber flight from Kadena, Okinawa, to an Air Force base at Madrid, Spain for a distance of 20,168 km.
