Airbus 380 Sets Record Making Longest Non-Stop Flight
An Emirates superjumbo touched down in Auckland, New Zealand, on Wednesday, after spending more than 17 hours in the air from Dubai – making it the world’s longest commercial scheduled flight, reports The Telegraph.
But its record is not expected to last long, with Qatar Airways opening a route to Santiago, Chile, as Gulf carriers look to open new, longer routes after exhausting closer destinations.
The Emirates A380 covered a route of about 8825 miles, before turning around and doing it all again on the way home.
It beat the previous record – Qantas’s Dallas to Sydney route – by about 250 miles.
Christopher Adams described his experience on the new flight, liveblogging the return journey from his business class seat for the New Zealand Herald.
“I had a walk around the cabin. It’s remarkably empty,” he wrote. “A crew member tells me this is due to a load restriction on the A380 required for it to complete the marathon flight to Dubai.”
The service was 40 minutes late taking off and had originally been scheduled to be operated by a Boeing 777.
