Forget the length of the flight for a moment, and forget the number of hours in the air.
One of the more striking things about Qantas' announcement of a new flight from Perth, Australia, to London is not so much the time but that fact that it's making aviation history - the first time, ever, a regularly scheduled nonstop flight will exist between the two continents.
You read that correctly.
The first nonstop direct flight ever between Australia and Europe.
"This is a game-changing route flown by a game-changing aircraft," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said in a statement, referring to the Dreamliner 787-9 that will be used for the route. "Australians have never had a direct link to Europe before, so the opportunities this opens up are huge."
And to think, Qantas' original flight between Sydney and London took four days with nine stopovers some 70 years ago.
Qantas now has many flights between Australia and Europe, but they come with a layover in either Dubai or Singapore. This new flight between Perth and London, set to begin in March of 2018, will go 17 hours without the need for stopping, some 9,000 miles total.
So where does that put the flight in terms of the world's longest?
Well, it's all relative when you come down to it, depending on whether you prefer your measurements in time or distance. Right now, the longest flight by distance is the 9,408 miles covered by Air India's route between Delhi and San Francisco. But because of favorable tailwinds over the Pacific Ocean, the flight is "only" 14 hours and 30 minutes - longer in distance than Qantas' new route yet shorter on time.
Emirates Airline's Dubai-to-Auckland flight comes in at 8,824 miles and 16 hours and 35 minutes.
Qantas' own Sydney-to-Dallas route is 8,577 miles in a time of 15-and-a-half hours.
And United's flight from San Francisco to Singapore is 8,446 miles, or 16 hours and 20 minutes from takeoff to landing.
Of course, as is the old adage, records are made to be broken. So if you want to consider the Perth-to-London flight the world's longest, it will only hold the record at 9,009 miles and 17 hours for just a few short months after it takes off in March of 2018. Later that year, Singapore Airlines will re-introduce its route between Singapore and Newark-Liberty International Airport in New Jersey with the new A-350 "Ultra Long Range" aircraft. The flight will be 18 hours and 9,534 miles.
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