Photo: TripAdvisor.com
Singapore Airlines has announced it will reintroduce the service from Singapore to New York, which means it will be running the world’s longest non-stop flight.
Currently estimated to take 18 hours and 25 minutes on the NOPAC (North Pacific) route, the first flight is booked almost in its entirety, the BBC reports. It will be carried out with the new family of Airbus aircraft, a twin-engine, long-range plane with considerably lower fuel consumption that can fly for up to 20 hours without stopping.
The plane can accommodate 161 passengers, 67 in the business class and 94 in the premium economy one, plus the cabin crew. All business class tickets have sold out and only a limited number of premium economy are still available, a representative for the airline company tells the media outlet.
“It will cover more than 15,000km and is scheduled to take just under 19 hours,” the BBC writes. “A business class ticket will entitle passengers to two meals, and the choice of when they are served, plus refreshments in between. They will also have a bed to sleep in. Premium economy fares will get three meals at fixed times, with refreshments in between.”
Singapore Airlines says there was increased demand in non-stop flights, so this is how they came to reconsider their initial decision to suspend the route when it became too expensive to run. Aviation experts also believe that long-haul direct flights might be the future of air travel, at least for a small niche of fliers.
“The thinking behind that is that they are selling a premium product - it's for the top end of town,” aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas tells the BBC. “This is a route between two massive financial hubs, and so they will fill this plane up with business people, or well-heeled travelers who want the convenience of a non stop flight. It's also been proven that when carriers introduce a new non-stop route, the traffic on that route increases threefold.”
The downside is that these non-stop routes depend on the economic context, so demand for them increases when there’s a financial boom and decreases as the bubble bursts.
The plane can accommodate 161 passengers, 67 in the business class and 94 in the premium economy one, plus the cabin crew. All business class tickets have sold out and only a limited number of premium economy are still available, a representative for the airline company tells the media outlet.
“It will cover more than 15,000km and is scheduled to take just under 19 hours,” the BBC writes. “A business class ticket will entitle passengers to two meals, and the choice of when they are served, plus refreshments in between. They will also have a bed to sleep in. Premium economy fares will get three meals at fixed times, with refreshments in between.”
Singapore Airlines says there was increased demand in non-stop flights, so this is how they came to reconsider their initial decision to suspend the route when it became too expensive to run. Aviation experts also believe that long-haul direct flights might be the future of air travel, at least for a small niche of fliers.
“The thinking behind that is that they are selling a premium product - it's for the top end of town,” aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas tells the BBC. “This is a route between two massive financial hubs, and so they will fill this plane up with business people, or well-heeled travelers who want the convenience of a non stop flight. It's also been proven that when carriers introduce a new non-stop route, the traffic on that route increases threefold.”
The downside is that these non-stop routes depend on the economic context, so demand for them increases when there’s a financial boom and decreases as the bubble bursts.
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