Future of Ultra Long-haul
The longest non-stop flights currently running are not the longest city pairs theoretically possible. Flights on the Kangaroo route, if flown non-stop, would exceed 17,000 kilometres (9,200 nmi). The longest routes possible are between antipodes, or points on the Earth's surface opposite each other with the Earth's center directly between, a distance of 20,038 km at the equator. Flights between Buenos Aires and Shanghai, Quito and Kuala Lumpur, Wellington and Madrid, Perth and Bermuda or Asuncion and Taipei have a distance of flight at 19,602 km, 19,715 km, 19,851 km, 19,918 km, and 19,933 km respectively. A theoretical non-stop flight between Málaga and Auckland, which are nearly antipodal, would cover a great circle distance of flight at 19,943 km. Furthermore, a theoretical flight between Honolulu and Johannesburg would travel 19,207 kilometers, and last about 24 hours 30 minutes if nonstop, much longer than the current record-holders.
Singapore Airlines announced the termination of its ultra-longhaul nonstop flights to Los Angeles and Newark in late 2013, after Airbus agreed to buy back the carrier's five A340-500s. It is believed that these services continued to fall short of revenue expectations, despite the airline switching to an all–business class cabin layout.
The Boeing 777-200LR airliner can cover the distance between antipodes when devoid of payload, but its range decreases significantly with the added weight of cargo and passengers. As of 2009, no airline has plans to introduce a non-stop service longer than the Singapore–Newark run, though both Airbus and Boeing have hinted at interest in developing variants to their long-haul airliners to make a London–Sydney non-stop flight economically feasible, for which purpose the Airbus consortium will offer the special Airbus A350-900R XWB variant to British Airways. The straight-line distance between London Heathrow Airport and Sydney Airport is 16,995 km.
Other proposals include utilization of point-to-point sub-orbital spaceflight for the ultra long-haul distances.
Read more about this topic: Non-stop Flight
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