executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-to-launch-the-world-s-longest-flight

The proposed New York-Hong Kong flight would be rerouted to avoid the Russian airspace which would take 16-17 hours [16,618km].
If successful, it will beat the current Singapore Airlines Singapore-New York JFK record [15,349km]. I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

I thought chinese airlines were still flying over Russia? Or why is Cathay avoiding russian airspace?

SYD330 wrote:

executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-to-launch-the-world-s-longest-flight

The proposed New York-Hong Kong flight would be rerouted to avoid the Russian airspace which would take 16-17 hours [16,618km].
If successful, it will beat the current Singapore Airlines Singapore-New York JFK record [15,349km]. I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

SQ is also avoiding Russian airspace. Yesterday's SQ23 JFK-SIN flight was 18:31 and last week it was over 19:00 as it went over Egypt. It should still be a much longer flight. 15,349 is great circle distance which goes straight over Russia.

ReverseFlow wrote:

I thought chinese airlines were still flying over Russia? Or why is Cathay avoiding russian airspace?

It's just Cathay and no one else

I won't dive into political side of it.

Michael

Probably because Swire is a London based company and isn't allowed into Russian airspace or doesn't want to give them money for fees as part of a global boycott.

AngMoh wrote:

SYD330 wrote:

executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-to-launch-the-world-s-longest-flight

The proposed New York-Hong Kong flight would be rerouted to avoid the Russian airspace which would take 16-17 hours [16,618km].
If successful, it will beat the current Singapore Airlines Singapore-New York JFK record [15,349km]. I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

SQ is also avoiding Russian airspace. Yesterday's SQ23 JFK-SIN flight was 18:31 and last week it was over 19:00 as it went over Egypt. It should still be a much longer flight. 15,349 is great circle distance which goes straight over Russia.

I love to fly but there is no way I could do 19 hours in coach. Gross.

eamondzhang wrote:

ReverseFlow wrote:

I thought chinese airlines were still flying over Russia? Or why is Cathay avoiding russian airspace?

It's just Cathay and no one else

I won't dive into political side of it.

Michael

There’s Chinese airlines that are still flying over Russia right now. China eastern flight from Shanghai to Paris is currently over Russian airspace

AngMoh wrote:

SYD330 wrote:

executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-to-launch-the-world-s-longest-flight

The proposed New York-Hong Kong flight would be rerouted to avoid the Russian airspace which would take 16-17 hours [16,618km].
If successful, it will beat the current Singapore Airlines Singapore-New York JFK record [15,349km]. I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

SQ is also avoiding Russian airspace. Yesterday's SQ23 JFK-SIN flight was 18:31 and last week it was over 19:00 as it went over Egypt. It should still be a much longer flight. 15,349 is great circle distance which goes straight over Russia.

Just an estimate isn't that 17.000 km + ?

TWA302 wrote:

AngMoh wrote:

SYD330 wrote:

executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-to-launch-the-world-s-longest-flight

The proposed New York-Hong Kong flight would be rerouted to avoid the Russian airspace which would take 16-17 hours [16,618km].
If successful, it will beat the current Singapore Airlines Singapore-New York JFK record [15,349km]. I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

SQ is also avoiding Russian airspace. Yesterday's SQ23 JFK-SIN flight was 18:31 and last week it was over 19:00 as it went over Egypt. It should still be a much longer flight. 15,349 is great circle distance which goes straight over Russia.

I love to fly but there is no way I could do 19 hours in coach. Gross.

The SQ A350ULR doesn't have coach: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Singa ... 900ULR.php

Here is the approximate route flown by SQ23 recently, 17300km. JFK-HKG following a similar route would be about 1000km shorter

Based on flightaware , the actual distance from SIN to EWR is 16500-16700 km and EWR to SIN is 17000km

HKG to JKF going the other way over Alaska, skirting Russia airspace is quite a bit shorter, around 14,000km. Why would they fly the long way in this case? Prevailing winds?

The non-stop flights on the A350ULR are Premium Economy and Business! No bad seat in the house!

TWA302 wrote:

AngMoh wrote:

SYD330 wrote:

executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-to-launch-the-world-s-longest-flight

The proposed New York-Hong Kong flight would be rerouted to avoid the Russian airspace which would take 16-17 hours [16,618km].
If successful, it will beat the current Singapore Airlines Singapore-New York JFK record [15,349km]. I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

SQ is also avoiding Russian airspace. Yesterday's SQ23 JFK-SIN flight was 18:31 and last week it was over 19:00 as it went over Egypt. It should still be a much longer flight. 15,349 is great circle distance which goes straight over Russia.

I love to fly but there is no way I could do 19 hours in coach. Gross.

Starfuryt wrote:

HKG to JKF going the other way over Alaska, skirting Russia airspace is quite a bit shorter, around 14,000km. Why would they fly the long way in this case? Prevailing winds?

Yes, due to winds. The JFK-HKG return leg flying over the Atlantic and Russia was also due to tailwind.

What's important here is the concept of "equivalent still air distance" (ESAD), instead of tracked distance and certainly not great-circle distance. ESAD adds on top of the tracked distance in the case of headwinds, and deducts from the tracked distance in the case of tailwinds.

For the more technical-minded here, ESAD = Ground-computed distance/(TAS + wind speed)*TAS

So for example, on a SFO-NRT route, the GC distance is around 4,439nm but the headwind faced is 72.5 knots based on 85% annual wind. ESAD distance is 5,210nm and the flight takes 10.63h.

The actual flights would take a much more northerly route over the Bering Sea, whose tracked distance is longer than GC at 4,621nm but a much weaker headwind at 44.5 knots. Thus the ESAD is the shortest at 5,081nm and the flight takes 10.37h.

So that Bloomberg article has its table sorted by tracked distance is wrong, which should have been sorted by flight time.

ok great thanks for the detailed explanation

Starfuryt wrote:

Here is the approximate route flown by SQ23 recently, 17300km. JFK-HKG following a similar route would be about 1000km shorter

Very nice map. But may I just point out that China has very strictly route control. CX won't be able to fly the most direct route from Hong Kong to GYD. The most likely route is to be:

VHHH-ZUGY-ZUUU-ZLLL-ZWWW-Kazakhstan

It will add few hundreds kms.

Starfuryt wrote:

HKG to JKF going the other way over Alaska, skirting Russia airspace is quite a bit shorter, around 14,000km. Why would they fly the long way in this case? Prevailing winds?

A number of factors come into play, I have done the flight over Alaska a number of times, I have also done flights which are eastbound only to take advantage of the polar jetstream, the A350 seems to see a lot more variety with routes due to its cruise performance, it has more altitude options available giving different wind profiles. Other factors that come into play are airspace costs, airport availability, aircraft serviceability, overflight availability, airspace closures.

Will CX be able to beat QF's MEL-DFW upcoming route?

Carfield wrote:

Cathay Pacific has indeed confirmed in mid-March that it has stopped flying over the Russian air space.
If you track all the HKG to Europe flights, it takes much longer now. My HKG-MAN flight in April has a flight time of fourteen hours, instead of twelve hours.

CX has not clarified on the reasoning behind it though.

Carfield

"CX has not clarified on the reasoning behind it though."

I dunno.....maybe something about not getting shot down....to start?

Wasn't some AI flight to the US already in the past at times beating SIN-EWR/JFK due to either (a) headwinds at certain times or (b) flying closures.

I remember this as a story in the last couple years. Or might have been prior to the re-launch of SIN-EWR, and it was beating whatever the longest was at the itme.

Personally I'm against re-ranking worlds longest flight due to specific place-in-time issues. Like I think that the routing shown for JFK-SIN is not too dissimilar to what flight path is often used for that flight depending on winds.

chonetsao wrote:

Starfuryt wrote:

Here is the approximate route flown by SQ23 recently, 17300km. JFK-HKG following a similar route would be about 1000km shorter

Very nice map. But may I just point out that China has very strictly route control. CX won't be able to fly the most direct route from Hong Kong to GYD. The most likely route is to be:

VHHH-ZUGY-ZUUU-ZLLL-ZWWW-Kazakhstan

It will add few hundreds kms.

That route would put it at roughly 16700, assuming GYD or thereabouts after ZWWW, which is right about what you need to skirt just south of Russian airspcae.

Noshow wrote:

Is ultra long haul the right thing to do in times of a very high oil price?

That could be said for so many things. Is NASCAR, or Formula 1 racing smart to do during high oil prices? Likely no, but we love fast cars.

I recall reading that the issue is how would they pay the Russian transit cost seeing as they have been removed from the SWIFT banking network.

That may of course have been baloney.

Am I blind or has an A/C type not been mentioned yet?

SYD330 wrote:

I am assuming there will be a Guinness World Records for Cathay Pacific if this mission can be accomplished.

Nope. They're not going to do that for a subjective routing.

If so, anyone could deviate off the great circle for any number of reasons, then try to claim "world's longest ___."

Noshow wrote:

Is ultra long haul the right thing to do in times of a very high oil price?

Step back and look at how your question is structured, then you'll have your answer.

You're basically asking "should a route be done if [COST] is high?"
......well, what's the only reason an airline would do so? Answer: if anticipated REVENUE is sufficient to counteract the COST, such that there would be potential PROFIT.

And that, would be your answer.

SYD330 wrote:

Will CX be able to beat QF's MEL-DFW upcoming route?

Seeing as that wouldn't even be QF's longest route, what's worthwhile about CX beating that?

commpilot wrote:

Probably because Swire is a London based company and isn't allowed into Russian airspace or doesn't want to give them money for fees as part of a global boycott.

Along with when HKG starts to relax it’s covid policies, CX will be hopeful in regaining some of the Western Transit market.

The Western Bussiness market, probably wouldn’t be too happy about flying over Russia.

Worlds longest CURRENT routing!

The plane has a stop in FRA.

Longer routings have been done in the past by Pan Am and United…specifically the RTW routes both going east and west.

If it is not non-stop, it does not count for a record…and I really like SQ and have enjoyed their service very much.

DN4CAAD wrote:

Am I blind or has an A/C type not been mentioned yet?

The article the OP mentioned says it will be on the A350-1000.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... est-flight

-Rowen

DLPMMM wrote:

Worlds longest CURRENT routing!

The plane has a stop in FRA.

Longer routings have been done in the past by Pan Am and United…specifically the RTW routes both going east and west.

If it is not non-stop, it does not count for a record…and I really like SQ and have enjoyed their service very much.

SQ 25/26 is SIN-FRA-JFK-FRA-SIN
SQ 23/24 is SIN-JFK-SIN non-stop
SQ 21/22 is SIN-EWR-SIN non-stop

AngMoh wrote:

DLPMMM wrote:

Worlds longest CURRENT routing!

The plane has a stop in FRA.

Longer routings have been done in the past by Pan Am and United…specifically the RTW routes both going east and west.

If it is not non-stop, it does not count for a record…and I really like SQ and have enjoyed their service very much.

SQ 25/26 is SIN-FRA-JFK-FRA-SIN
SQ 23/24 is SIN-JFK-SIN non-stop
SQ 21/22 is SIN-EWR-SIN non-stop

Also note that the old SQ21/22 on A340-500 took a lot longer due to the lower air speed of the A345 vs A359. The only time I flew SIN-EWR, flight time was 18:30 on A345 vs around 17:00 on the A359. Return flight was 18:45 and that was using the shorter route over Ukraine, Russia and Afghanistan (all 3 are avoided now). The A359 does that route in around 17:30.

AngMoh wrote:

Also note that the old SQ21/22 on A340-500 took a lot longer due to the lower air speed of the A345 vs A359. The only time I flew SIN-EWR, flight time was 18:30 on A345 vs around 17:00 on the A359. Return flight was 18:45 and that was using the shorter route over Ukraine, Russia and Afghanistan (all 3 are avoided now). The A359 does that route in around 17:30.

There is very little difference in the cruising speeds of the A345 vs A359, certainly nothing that would explain a 90 minute advantage in the A350's favour.

Is the SQ flight all Y+ seats? What about the CX flight?

ReverseFlow wrote:

I thought chinese airlines were still flying over Russia? Or why is Cathay avoiding russian airspace?

CX has stopped flying over Russian airspace since Mar 1.

But yes, mainland China airlines such as CA, MU, CZ, etc. are still flying over Russian airspace. If you look at Flighradar24, now only mainland China airlines, AI, PK, EK, EY, QR, HY and TK are still flying over Russia.

Carfield wrote:

CX has not clarified on the reasoning behind it though.

Carfield

While CX has not publicized why they stopped flying over Russia, they did that about the same time as KE and OZ stopped doing so. Note that the Korean carriers were still flying over Russia long after European, American and Japanese carriers stopped.

One key reason is the difficulty in paying the overflight fees. These airlines are paying USD and using American or European banks themselves, which many of them (if not all) are refusing to deal with USD transactions with Russian banks.

The payment problem would not be an issue for Chinese, Indian, Turkish or ME3 since they are most likely using domestic banks. While the domestic banks of these countries also adhere to US and EU sanctions (if they don't, they will be barred from all USD and EUR transactions themselves), these banks are still willing to deal with anything Russian that are not in the sanction list.

Starfuryt wrote:

HKG to JKF going the other way over Alaska, skirting Russia airspace is quite a bit shorter, around 14,000km. Why would they fly the long way in this case? Prevailing winds?

[/quote]

I have flown EWR-HKG, JFK-HKG, ORD-HKG and YYZ-HKG by CX several times before.

Even during the old days, BOS-HKG and JFK/EWR-HKG by CX were often flying east instead of west. The flights would fly along the Atlantic coast to Halifax, Newfoundland, then along the east coast of Greenland to cross into the Arctic, instead of flying directly northwards or in a more northwesterly direction.

On the other hand, YYZ-HKG and ORD-HKG always fly a direct north path over northwestern Ontario, the Hudson Bay and Baffin Island to cross into the Arctic.

I wonder when will CX reinstate YYZ and how it would route the flight.

What is the status of COVID restrictions in Hong Kong? I recall Hong Kong banned flights from the US

What is the status of COVID restrictions in Hong Kong? I recall Hong Kong banned flights from the US

max999 wrote:

What is the status of COVID restrictions in Hong Kong? I recall Hong Kong banned flights from the US

Hong Kong will lift country-specific flight bans including that on the US on April 1st. The "circuit breaker" flight suspension (if a certain number of positive cases or rule-breakers are brought in on a certain flight) will be reduced from a 14-day ban to a 7-day ban. Therefore, CX plans to only fly its US routes once-weekly so that even if their flight trips the circuit breaker, no passenger bookings will need to be rearranged.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... seven-days

stlgph wrote:

Carfield wrote:

Cathay Pacific has indeed confirmed in mid-March that it has stopped flying over the Russian air space.
If you track all the HKG to Europe flights, it takes much longer now. My HKG-MAN flight in April has a flight time of fourteen hours, instead of twelve hours.

CX has not clarified on the reasoning behind it though.

Carfield

"CX has not clarified on the reasoning behind it though."

I dunno.....maybe something about not getting shot down....to start?

Less extreme than that, I can imagine that a diversion to a Russian airport for technical reasons could become a bigger issue if you need spares to fix your grounded plane. Getting the spare parts there may be impossible due to the sanctions.