Talk:Longest flights

Longest 747SP flight

It seems like at some point or another (looking at the departedflights 1980s OAGs) PA815, UA815, and QF12 all operated LAX-SYD westbound on 747SP. However, each has a block time shorter than the 15:25 eastbound PA816 number currently in our table (which is sourced from a 1980 Pan Am timetable). We should give each of PA, UA, and QF "credit" for operating the longest 747SP flight, but it's unclear to me how to do so given the tiebreaker between flights of the same GC distance is block time and the eastbound 1980 PA816 appears to be the longest block time. Would appreciate any thoughts from @DigitalExpat. DoubleClawHammer (talk) 18:25, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi @DoubleClawHammer - Great work as always and what great question - as this article has matured and grown, its gotten to the refinement point of these type of questions. (A very good sign I think!)

I am of the opinion that the record holder should go to first operator that sets the record on that route, whatever airlines came after and tied the record in my mind didn't set it (but definitely notable and should be recorded (as a note?). Alternatively if there are not a high frequency of these kind of ties and the 747SP is truly a one-off, I would sort them by date of first operation (and those dates should be mentioned in a note).

In my view, the historical record table is slightly different than the rest of the article, it is highlighting those who set the record, not those who subsequently recreated it or tied it.

As far as block time, I would suggest that these are ignored as they are entirely arbitrary in regards to the route - down to remote stands versus jet-bridge, ground traffic congestion, or probably more likely/murky - marketing (eg EU261 penalty avoidance or the conspiracy theories around Ryanair's block timings to enable them to play their beloved/despised ontime landing anthem over the tannoy :) )

What are your thoughts on who to display ties in the record-based tables? (and are there any other ties? I haven't really looked to be honest, you know the records table better than I for sure!)

Thanks @DoubleClawHammer and all! DigitalExpat (talk) 05:21, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the self reply - just realised one more thought - if the "Current" table allows for multiple operators per route, then it makes sense for the historical as well...so I would revert my second option in the opinion, sorted by date of first operating (as it is record based) DigitalExpat (talk) 05:24, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

There are a few ties, but it's quite rare. The sorting doesn't make a difference in my view -- especially when it's easier to combine an operator with a row above or below it -- but I do agree we should add some sort of note marking who was the first to operate a route when we can find that data. DoubleClawHammer (talk) 04:16, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! DigitalExpat (talk) 08:49, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Longest 777-200ER (CO 98 v UA 179)

Thanks again to @DoubleClawHammer for the great article additions - I had a philosophical question on this one (somewhat related to the 747SP tie question!) - CO 98 and UA 179 are the same flight, when they merged in 2011, UA took over the route and gave it a new number (even were using the same CO planes and UA's fleet couldn't make that distance I believe). In this case since its the same flight, I would be tempted to list is as Continental Airlines and then the call sign have both next to each other: CO98,UA179 (and a note explaining the pre-merge/post merge? What are others thoughts on the best way to do this? 05:41, 16 November 2023 (UTC) DigitalExpat (talk) 05:41, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Following the other reply I made, I think the best thing to do would be keep the current display as is but add a note to mark that CO98 was the initial service that became UA179 after the merger. DoubleClawHammer (talk) 04:17, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good to me as well, creates maximum visibility for those searching for encyclopedic information, nice one 👍 DigitalExpat (talk) 08:50, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Distance of longest flight

The longest flight as per the article is the one on November 2005 listed under the non-scheduled section. The paragraph mentions that it flew eastward from Hong Kong to London-Heathrow at "great circle distance" of 11664 nautical miles. However, the direct distance between HKG and LHR is 5210 nm, as stated correctly in the paragraph. Considering that earth's circumference is 21600 nm, flying in the opposite direction would be not less than 16390 nm. Going back to the sources, the flight did not fly in the precise opposite direction. It only flew a long eastwardly route. Hence, the distance mentioned cannot be said to be "great circle distance", but just a "distance". Therefore, I suggest deleting the words "great circle" from the paragraph. Imdashti (talk) 07:13, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Imdashti, great spot and good question/point!

It does need some clarification on the wording, as per the cited sources, the onboard observers from the NAA ensured that the 3 preplanned midpoints were overflown (just north of Midway Island at ~35º,180º, LAX, and JFK). If you plot these 5 points, that is resulting recorded "Great Circle Distance" that was given to the flight. While in reality they deviated substantially from an optimal "great circle" route between these points to seek out favourable winds, etc... (plus they did about 20 extra minutes of loops in the beloved Heathrow stacks before they could even land!)

So in reality they flew much further than this, but FAI and NAA use the covered great circle distances as a standard for measurement (just like this wiki article does :) )

Also one other point if I may - your observation about the circumference of the Earth being 21,600 nm at the equator is spot on. In this case though the circumnavigation was being done far north of the equator and all in one hemisphere. (to illustrate mentally, if you head north from the equator, the circumference of the earth at the Tropic of Cancer is ~19,844 nm, head extreme north to the Arctic circle and circumference is only ~8,629 km), so the total "great circle" distance for the flight makes a bit more sense (for better illustration, try tagging on an additional stop to my above linked GCMap of heading the rest of the way around the world from LHR back to HKG :) )

Back to your point, I agree with your observation that the way it is worded is not clear and could be quite easily misunderstood/misinterpreted. I'm tempted to add a qualifier of "[...] flew a confirmed (observed?) route covering a great circle distance of 21,602km [...] And if we wanted to a be a bit more belt and braces about it, we could add a [note] tag to explain the route built by CX for Boeing using the overlight points and the NAA Observer on board too (or could just leave it to the citations that explain it even better :) ) Again a great question @Imdashti and a very well thought out and worded one! Interested in yours and others thoughts as always :) DigitalExpat (talk) 09:04, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Longest E190 - Kenya Airways monofleeting/no longer operating E190 on NBO-LOS

Hi all, I'm thinking @DoubleClawHammer for your next round of longest route updates, I don't believe KG533/KG535 are operating using an E190 anymore. KG has stated last year about transitioning to a monofleet (Boeing equipment) and looking at the route currently I can't even see the last time an e190 operating it as it is all 788 or 73H now. Confirmed with SkyTeam Schedule here: Skyteam_Timetable.pdf (page 5886) as well as Cirium data ( [1]https://info.flightmapper.net/route/YY_NBO_LOS )...so thinking this entry is no longer valid and needs updating and this kind of research you and others are better than I am at! So flagging this up and asking for help, thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 05:54, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I think you're looking at the wrong table -- the Current table has 4Z132 HLE-JNB as the longest E190 flight; KQ LOS-NBO is only in the Records table. DoubleClawHammer (talk) 16:42, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

🤦‍♂️ There's no doubt about it...I absolutely am/was!! (Apologies I am guilty of editing in non-visual editor trying to upgrade the old simpleflying citations and fell into this trap. Sorry @DoubleClawHammerDoubleClawHammer and thank you as always for the graciousness and the save (what a rookie mistake!). (Pays to not wiki-edit when tired too!) Apologies! DigitalExpat (talk) 04:53, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Longest A339 Route UPG-JED

Thanks to @Ajeterb for the addition of this very long route, but looking at it: I believe JT92/JT94 (and the return flights) are not scheduled flights, but all chartered as are part of Lion Air's Umrah packages (but also marketed as public/tourist purposes, but all on a chartered basis only) Evidence:

- Looks Scheduled (these flights really do operate this frequently)
- Insinuates Chartered Operations (Umrah packages)
- and then the flights are not bookable on any GDS/OBE or even directly via lionair.id

So I believe this is a kin to like a pure chartered operator in this case (eg: Titan Airways (UK), or even NetJets (US) ), in that this route is not scheduled/bookable by the public, therefore should this be excluded from the list? (It will end its seasonality at the end of April so may be a moot point by then irregardless) DigitalExpat (talk) 05:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Chartered Flights

We've had a couple of great additions of some record setting chartered flights to the article. Unfortunately these are against the current article detailed definition of the general term "longest flights" to the specific: "longest scheduled commercial passenger flights".

It's worth re-evaluating (as always) to ensure this is producing the best quality wikipedia article as always I think instead of outright rejecting, so my thoughts are twofold: inability for unequivocal comparision & lack of encyclopedic quality research/documentation:

1) Unfair Comparisons - I believe the reason this article remains encyclopedic quality is due to being explicitly limited to scheduled commercial passenger flights, which by nature have an ability to verify from multiple sources. Non-scheduled flights (eg: chartered, positioning flights, government repatriation flights, delivery flights etc...) (which can be of extraordinary distances in part due to not needing to conform to route planning, profitable load maximising (allowing above standard range/performance), or even being confined to commercial airspace agreements are far less restrained by their clients' desired routes from A to B. Making for relatively unfair/disparate comparison

2) Lack of ability for quality citations/research - While many (but not all) chartered flights can be accurately tracked via popular tools like FlightRadar24, FlightAware, FlightStats etc... (given you have the registration/tail number), it is not exhaustive and relies on the researcher looking for the "right flight at the right time" to be able to cite the data. Where as scheduled commercial flights are verifiable from multiple cite-able sources (including the operator itself) and I believe passes the "red face test" as far encyclopedic quality information. Readily available sources (printed, online) still exist now demonstrating the longest scheduled flights in the decades past, where-as ready access to flight tracking data (the only way to reference chartered flights becomes constrained or unavailable rapidly as the days/weeks pass from a flight)

For just these two reasons alone, I think the article has no ability to confidently include chartered flights. For those truly exceptional non-scheduled flights - I am encouraged that they are often well covered in the press and therefore rightly able to be included in their own section so as not to deny them completely as they are notable indeed.

Interested in others thoughts? (And of course all chartered flight submissions like @RAFI2024 's are still indelibly in the article revision history so they could be retrieved if there was a decision to use the data otherwise/in another article) DigitalExpat (talk) 04:40, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Article Standards for Encyclopedic Assurance

Hi All,

While the topic has been covered in pieces of previous talk subjects as well as explicitly mentioned in the Measurement method portion of article itself, as we get more new contributors the article (which is great!) - it looks like we would benefit from having a talk subject regarding the data standards (and discussion/challenging them if we think we can make them better, as always of course)

Distances = The article uses the Great Circle Distance from Origin to Destination, it is the only way to possibly compare routes (flights in of themselves are not comparable). This negates the other variables or routings, equipment performance, arrival stacks, etc... The calculation for GC Distance done on http://gcmap.com is (as discussed in previous talk subject) superior and of demonstrated accuracy

Durations = These are the published scheduled durations for these flights' routes, again negating the natural variability of each individual flight's routings, timings (eg: traffic), etc...

Reliable Sources = As per all entries/contributions to Wikipedia, they need to be cited by a reliable source (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources ), in particular Simple Flying is not a RS (see: WP:SIMPLEFLYING )

I'd be very happy to see the above enhanced/refined/challenged if we think there is a way to improve the article even more!

DigitalExpat (talk) 11:25, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

EWR-HKG (again)

For obvious reasons UA will not be operating UA179 EWR-HKG anytime soon, even though it is on sale from late March 2025 onwards. We are currently not displaying this route in the Scheduled Services section, nor do we have it in current or discontinued longest flights, and of course it should go in one of those three sections.

At what point do we decide this route is discontinued and move it to that table? If we do declare the route discontinued, we should also display CX899 alongside it which last flew in 2020.

cc @DigitalExpat DoubleClawHammer (talk) 04:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@DoubleClawHammer Good shout, entirely agreed.👍 I would vote that it is added to discontinued (and we can add a Note about the potential restart of it. If/when things changes significantly (American carriers using Russian airspace), then also added it to upcoming flights for its resumption May make sense, but until something substantial changes, I think leave it on discontinued (with CX addition and Note). DigitalExpat (talk) 05:46, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

agreed! FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 15:20, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

(Nonstop by Type - A318) - AF will be longest/last A318 Operator as of ~Nov 26?

Looks like reports are of TAROM ceasing operations of their last A318, so believe Air France will be the defacto longest route operator, I haven't had a chance to research which AF route be the longest, but if one of the fantastic geniuses of this Wiki article can find it, it looks like the update will be needed/justified starting from Nov 26 onwards... DigitalExpat (talk) 08:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It turns out RO391 OTP-LHR ceased operations as of 26 Oct and they are mostly flying the A318 domestically and to IST. The longest current flight is AF7550 NCE-LHR (updated in the table). There have been a few A318 substitutions on CDG-NAP (usually E190) which is longer but flightmapper suggests this is not regularly scheduled. DoubleClawHammer (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

A343 record flight

The table has CX823 JFK-HKG as the record longest A343 flight, with supporting evidence being a 2001 route announcement. However, the nonstop JFK-HKG didn't launch until 2004 with the A346 (which we actually have as the start date in the top-30 longest flights table) and I don't think the A343 ever flew nonstop JFK-HKG, only JFK-YVR-HKG. As far as I can tell the longest A343 flight was SA202 JFK-JNB (eastbound only) at 7969smi.

@DigitalExpat should we convert the A343 record over to JFK-JNB? DoubleClawHammer (talk) 21:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @DoubleClawHammer, sorry for the delayed response to you. I entirely agree with you - there is not only zero evidence CX ever flew the A343 nonstop HKG-JFK, there is documented evidence that it didn't (Pilot strike in Aug 2001 (following the "49ers" incident, followed by Sep 11 happening 10 days post the original launch date and the subsequent impact/downturn in demand. The 2004 revised launch date is the correct one)

Related primary & secondary Sources:

https://news.cathaypacific.com/cathay-pacific-celebrates-20-years-in-new-york-city#

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/14/business/airlines-are-cutting-back-on-some-international-flights.html

https://www.cathaypacific.com/content/dam/cx/about-us/investor-relations/interim-annual-reports/en/2004_annual-report_en.pdf

Entirely agree with your findings (as per usual!) suggest you go ahead with your edit and make the article all the better, great catch @DoubleClawHammer

08:52, 19 November 2024 (UTC) DigitalExpat (talk) 08:52, 19 November 2024 (UTC)