The World’s Longest Nonstop Commercial Flight Takes off in New York and Doesn’t Land for 18 Hours
On January 1, 1914, an airplane took off from St. Petersburg, Florida. Within half an hour, it landed in Tampa. It was the world’s first commercial flight. Fast forward 110 years, and getting on a plane isn’t anything special for many folks. As aviation tech made strides, so did viable flight distance. Today, the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight takes a bit longer than 18 hours and travels 9,526 miles across the globe.
OAG has a scoreboard of the 10 longest commercial flights in the world. Right now, Singapore Airlines takes the prize for its nonstop flight from New York to Singapore.
A TikTok gives a handy flight tracker of the route, which seems a bit counterintuitive. An Airbus A350 makes the journey across as much land as possible, hitting many major cities.
From New York, it heads northeast over Halifax, Nova Scotia, before turning to cross the Atlantic. Entering Europe via France, it travels southeast over Serbia and across the Middle East.
Staying over land, it continues down into India. It enters the Bay of Bengal and crosses over into Malaysia. Shortly after, it lands in Singapore.
The Airbus A350 can fly up to 9,000 nautical miles at full passenger and crew capacity. This is about 20 hours of nonstop flight.
One TikTok commenter reiterated that Qantas Airlines announced that in 2025, it will offer a nonstop London to Sydney flight, which we confirmed. The flight will travel 10,576 miles and will take 20 hours to complete. Another commenter replied, “Double sunrise flight!”
