The world’s ever longest commercial flight: New York-Sydney in 19 hours
Added on Wed October 23rd, 2019
Qantas Airlines flight landed at Sydney airport after 19 hours: it was the world’s ever longest commercial flight. The airplane took off from JFK airport (New York) on October 18th at 9.27 pm and it touched down at 7.43 am on 20th.
Just 49 people were on board and they were six pilots, six members of cabin crew including a chef, a handful of reporters, six frequent flyers and the airline’s chief executive, Alan Joyce. The Boeing was designed to test whether passengers can endure the physical and mental effects of extremely long aeroplane journeys.
The flight was restricted to such a small number of passengers in order to ensure that it was light enough to make it all the way to Australia on just one tank of fuel.
The flight covered 16,200 kms (10,200 miles) – about 900 km further than the current longest commercial flight between Singapore and New York.
This was the first of three test flights for long distances. Next month, Qantas Airlines will test a direct flight from Heathrow to Sydney, which will set a new distance record of 17,000 km and take about 19.5 hours.
In order to reduce jetlag, passengers reset their watches to Sydney time and were kept awake with the lights on for six hours and served a spicy soup and fish lunch. Passengers were together in business class. Pilots, passengers and crew were also subjected to a battery of health and wellbeing checks designed to test the effects of ultra-long-haul flying. There were also cameras in the cockpit to record alertness and regular activity.
Read the full article: click here
Share this news on:
