Long Haul

I’m currently on a local flight, assuming that all has gone well with the somewhat radical plan of waking up and getting to the airport. My last few tripss have been intercontinental behemoths, with door to door journey times of nearly 24 hours. But they each included two flights, and door to door means getting to airport, checking in, connecting and catching a train at the other end etc etc. It could have been a lot worse. I could have been on one of these flights – the top three longest commercial long haul flights… IN THE WORLD [/clarkson]

Straight In At Number Three:
Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi on Etihad is 8390 miles and 16.5 hours
(LAX-AUH, EY170, B777)

Pros: You go pretty much right over the North Pole.
Abu Dhabi is an awesome connection hub.

Cons: You have either been, or worse still, are now in Los Angeles (Where the helicopters got cameras).

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A New Entry At Number Two:
Atlanta to Johannesburg on Delta is 8439 miles and 16.5 hours
(ATL-JNB, DL200, B777)

Pros: Kruger National Park. Africa!

Cons: No flat topped Mountain.

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But Your Number One Is Still:
Dallas to Sydney on Qantas is 8578 miles and 17 hours
(DFW-SYD, QF8, A380)

Pros: None.

Cons: Dallas. Sydney.

This is the world’s biggest airliner on the world’s longest route. The A380 carries a massive 323,000 litres of fuel for this trip.

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Compare and contrast these with the shortest scheduled commercial flight in the world:  The 1.7 mile hop between two Orkney Islands just north of Scotland: Papa Westray and Westray (PPW-WRY, LOG358, Britten Norman Islander).
Operated by Loganair, the flight duration is officially two minutes. Here’s a video indicating the distance between the two airfields:

There’s also a video of the Sydney – Dallas flight, but that’s a whole lot longer and has Americans and Australians all over it.

I’ll spare you.

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