Longest flights

Over time, different airline companies have established a number of ultra-long haul non-stop flights. This article would cover the longest flights among them. The opening of these super long routes is said to be able to reduce the number of stops passengers must take to increase passenger comfort in the journey and reduce the time needed to travel between distant city pairs although stopover can also be rejuvenating in these long distance travel. It is also said to help build ego and build loyalty among a set of flyers. And thus there are competition between airlines to establish the longest flight, even though these operations often use suboptimal shrunk airliners, harder to profit from.

The word "longest flight" can mean numerous different things. The most commonly referred to metric would be for distance between the origin airport and destination airport, but it can also refer to longest in term of time needed to fly the route or the distance actually flown by the aircraft. Also, although it is most commonly used to compare between different non-stop flights, direct flights with stops might also be compared in some occasions.

The "world's longest flight" has disputed status due to the generality of such a claim. While the distance between two cities is constant, aircraft do not follow a straight path but will adjust the flight path based on headwinds/tailwinds, other weather events, and to avoid overflying certain countries due to politics or war.

Since 5 February 2017, the longest non-stop scheduled airline flight (by great circle distance) is Qatar Airways Flight 921 from Auckland, New Zealand to Doha, Qatar, and its return Flight 920, at 14,534 kilometres (7,848 nmi). Those flights use a Boeing 777-200LR.

Often, actual routings vastly differ from the optimal great circle route. One such example is Air India Flight 173 from Delhi to San Francisco, whose great circle distance is 12,402 kilometres (7,706 mi). From 16 October 2016, the flight was rerouted over the Pacific Ocean instead of the North Pole, often making the flight more than 14,500 km (9,000 mi) in length, which is the longest flight in terms of actual distance travelled. This is despite the fact that the flight only takes 14.5 hours, helped by a strong tailwind. On 13 January 2017, AI 173 travelled 10,551 mi (16,980 km) ) in 15h 4m. Another case of such a discrepancy is any flight from Hong Kong to New York, which often flies close to 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) in ground distance with the aid of tailwinds. The great circle distance between the two cities is 12,985 kilometres (8,069 mi).

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