New York – The world’s longest commercial flight — Singapore to Newark, N.J. — is being cancelled.
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Singapore Airlines says that it will end its nonstop flights between Singapore, Newark and Los Angeles. The two routes were flown on gas-guzzling Airbus A340-500s.
The airline found the only way to make the route profitable was by configuring the plane with 98 business class seats that sell for about $8,000 roundtrip. Other airlines operate the same plane with about 250 seats in first, business and economy classes.
The new titles for longest distance and duration flights will go respectfully to a Qantas route between Sydney and Dallas and a Delta flight between Johannesburg and Atlanta
Took the sin-ewr flight home this year. And no, I didnt pay the $7,500 one way fare. I used 75,000 Amex points. It is an amazing feeling to get onto a plane and hear the Captian say that the flying time will be 18 1/2 hours! Thats like tlv-ewr with a 6 hour delay! Oh, wait a minute, thats a daily occurrence!
The statement “The airline found the only way to make the route profitable was by configuring the plane with 98 business class seats ” is incorrect. I remember when the flight was started there was an issue of weight and distance. The only way to reliably schedule the flight as nonstop was to fly fewer passengers. Once they were flying fewer paying passengers they decided to maximize revenue.
18 1/2 hours in a plane?
On a good business class flight I could easily handle 24 hours.
Sometimes I don’t wanna get off the flight.
I would stay away from the A340 aircraft no matter what. If it has so many people, the wait to get luggage must be horrific. A 747 is bad enough.
Airbus tried to sell the A340 to El Al, offering to build a synagogue just below the lower deck. They said they could make the synagogue always maintain an easterly direction. Sounds cool, but I think that El Al choked on (a) the price, and (b) doing something that would attract even more haredi passengers.
I think some of you guys are confusing the plane pictured with the one used on this 18 1/2 hour flight. The SIngapore-Newark flight uses a A340-500 plane that sits 98 people. More than half the time the flight flies half empty so there is no wait at all for luggage. That also means that there is plenty of space and time to do what ever your heart desires such as Daf Yomi or sleep or both. The plane has only one level so there is no shul on board. The plane pictured is the 2 deck A380 which holds over 550 people with luggage and can have a Shul or anything else on board.