It’s no longer a secret that the global health issue has substantially reduced the number of passengers on commercial flights. Still, now that the world finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, things are slowly but surely coming back to normal.
On the other hand, people flying with Singapore Airlines these days probably think otherwise, especially if they have traveled from Singapore to New York lately.
The world’s longest flight, during which the airplane stays up in the air for approximately 18 hours and over 9,500 miles, took off earlier this week with just 11 passengers on board.
Photos published on Twitter show just how ghostly the cabin looked like in a plane that had just 11 passengers on 161 seats. The A350-900ULR that operates the flight between Singapore and JFK offers 67 business class seats and 94 premium economy seats. As you can easily figure out by simply checking the photos in the gallery here, these numbers sound ridiculous given the airplane had less than a dozen of passengers on board.
Even more ironic is that flight SQ24 had more crew members than passengers, as the plane took off with nine cabin crew members and four pilots.
So does it make any sense for the world's longest flight to continue operating nearly empty? That’s hard to say, but as others have explained, too, it all comes down to how much cargo is actually transported.
Because at the end of the day, while few people might travel between the two locations, cargo still needs to be transported from Singapore to the United States and the other way around as efficiently as possible, and airplanes are obviously the fastest method.
Not to mention that airplanes have found another purpose these days, as they can very well be used to transport vaccines. For now, nobody knows for sure if the 11-passenger flight was actually loaded with any important cargo.
The world’s longest flight, during which the airplane stays up in the air for approximately 18 hours and over 9,500 miles, took off earlier this week with just 11 passengers on board.
Photos published on Twitter show just how ghostly the cabin looked like in a plane that had just 11 passengers on 161 seats. The A350-900ULR that operates the flight between Singapore and JFK offers 67 business class seats and 94 premium economy seats. As you can easily figure out by simply checking the photos in the gallery here, these numbers sound ridiculous given the airplane had less than a dozen of passengers on board.
Even more ironic is that flight SQ24 had more crew members than passengers, as the plane took off with nine cabin crew members and four pilots.
So does it make any sense for the world's longest flight to continue operating nearly empty? That’s hard to say, but as others have explained, too, it all comes down to how much cargo is actually transported.
Because at the end of the day, while few people might travel between the two locations, cargo still needs to be transported from Singapore to the United States and the other way around as efficiently as possible, and airplanes are obviously the fastest method.
Not to mention that airplanes have found another purpose these days, as they can very well be used to transport vaccines. For now, nobody knows for sure if the 11-passenger flight was actually loaded with any important cargo.
11 total passengers tonight on SQ24 - the longest commercial flight in the world SIN-JFK. We’re nearly 20% of the paying passengers and we’re outnumbered by crew 13:11. pic.twitter.com/HDF2ohr9OK
— Steve Giordano???????????????? (@JTTsteve) April 12, 2021