At 9,487 miles, Singapore Airlines' flight between New York's JFK Airport and Changi Airport is currently the longest route in the world. It is flown with an A350-900 and takes about 19 hours. Cirium's Diio database of scheduled flights around the world shows that, by 2019, there were 30 routes with more than 8,000 miles. In fact, Singapore Airlines was responsible for four, namely Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle (the New York JFK route had not yet started in 2019). Australia and New Zealand ranked high on the list, with routes including Perth-London, Dubai-Auckland and Doha-Auckland. In 2015, the airlines operated only 17 routes with more than 8,000 miles. Five years before that, the number was only 10, and in the year 2005, there were only six. The growth of ultra-long-haul flights has many drivers. One is aircraft technology, with Airbus and Boeing continually introducing longer-range products with attractive economics like the Boeing 787 Dreamliners and Airbus A350s. Other reasons include growing economies, deregulated markets, increasing globalization, and the emergence of Middle Eastern airlines with hubs and fleets that can support new intercontinental routes. What happens now, with travel recovering from the pandemic? During the current quarter from July to September, airlines have 22 routes of at least 8,000 miles, which is down from 30 in 2019. Doha-Auckland, for example, is no longer offered. Nor Dubai-Auckland. There are four nonstop routes that are new this year, including Singapore Airlines' New York-JFK flight, along with Doha-San Francisco (Qatar Airways), Perth-Rome (Qantas) and Auckland-New York-JFK (Air New Zealand, to be released in September).
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