That’s a lot of trips to the potty.
In 1961, I took a flight aboard a Douglas DC-6 from McGuire Air Force Base in Wrightstown, NJ to Frankfurt, Germany that took 19 hours, but it wasn’t nonstop. The plane landed at Gander, Newfoundland to refuel.
Well, that leaves the market open to Spirit Air or Ryan Air to fill that ever so desirable, 19 hour flight for 550 folks and one operating loo.
Plus pretzels for all.
Could you imagine being sat next to some fat guy with indigestion, a sinus infection and a emotional support squirrel...for nineteen hours?! Cause that is exactly what would happen to me.
The “Deep Vein Thrombosis Special”.
In August I did 16 hours from Singapore to San Fran. in coach. That was after a 4 hour trip from India to Singapore. Never again. It was the worst flight experience of my life.
In the mid ‘70s, I flew the Douglas DC8-63 series for a US charter carrier. The -63 was designed for long flights.
I think the design specs were from SAS - Los Angeles or San Francisco to Stockholm nonstop. It was so fuel limited that Douglas engineers drained the wing to wing crossfeed manifold to make it work on that route.
We have 4,000+ employees (Turbine engine repair) in Singapore and we say its 24 hours from when you leave your house to when you get to your Hotel.
Singapore is the most expensive city I have ever been to (including Europe and Japan), so 10 years from now I seriously doubt we’ll still have 4,000 employees there.
I suspect we’ll be bringing the work back to the southern US and H1B visaing singaporeans as required.
Ha! MH370 got that beat. Still ain’t landed yet.
Melbourne to Los Angeles is a pretty long flight, but with Quantas and the Boeing DREAMLINER quite a nice flight. I won’t fly Airbus If can help it.
21 hours, including a stop for fuel, from Jo’burg to Atlanta. The stop was just long enough to take on fuel. We were not allowed off the aircraft.
I spent a lot of time walking up and down the aisle and doing calf raises.
However, the long distance flights that impress me most are the Air Force bombers that can take off at a base in Nebraska, cross the Atlantic, drop their bombs and then fly all the way back home without having to stop. This was going on during the Gulf wars. I'm pretty sure they are re-fueled mid-air but that's still impressive.
Imagine being a pilot on one of those planes and after landing, stopping for a steak dinner on the way home. Must be kind of surreal sitting there at an Outback in the middle of America, having just dropped a bunch of bombs over Iraq or Afghanistan. All in a days work.
I fly American Airlines from Dallas to Orange County CA once a month. Just enough time to watch Saturday Night Fever and then prepare for landing. 2.5 Hours.
19 Hours non stop? Unimaginable. But then again the Singapore Airline Attendants vs American Air......I can only imagine. Some of the guys I play tennis with fly internationally and have nothing but good things to say about Singapore Airlines and their help...:)
I don’t care what “class’ you sit in...just how many bad movies can you tolerate???
In 1980s I flew from DC to Asuncion on an Eastern Airlines 727, which took 24 hrs, albeit with stops in:
1. Miami
2. Panama
3. Columbia
4. Ecuador
5. Peru
6. Bolivia
7. Paraguay.
I got off at each stop, and I nearly missed getting back on the flight from LaPaz, as I made the mistake of drinking a beer and lighting up a Camel at 12,000 ft and got a little woozy and lost track of time. A solder got me out of the bar while another ran with the portable stairs to stop the plane — mid-taxi— to let me back on. I love those little guys to this day!
In late 80s, AA bought Eastern. I read in the news that when they stripped one of the old Eastern 727s from that route they found bricks of cocaine hidden beneath the cockpit, lol.
AA then added MIA-GRU-ASU, and eventually had MIA-ASU direct flights, which only took 8 hrs.