Coronavirus causes world’s longest-ever passenger flight

NY Post ^ | March 17, 2020 | Hana R. Roberts

[C19fan]

This aviation record flew beneath the radar. On Saturday, Air Tahiti Nui set a record for the longest-ever scheduled passenger flight — 9,765 miles from Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, to Paris. Flight TN064 usually stops-over in Los Angeles — but thanks to US travel restrictions put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic, it just flew straight from Tahiti to France. Even though it was a one-off occurrence due to COVID-19, it was still a planned journey, and therefore broke the distance record previously held by Singapore Airlines’ 9,534-mile flight between Singapore and Newark.

[C19fan]

The plane was a 787-9 Dreamliner. 9765 miles is 8485 nautical miles. The plane must have been modified, for example, limiting weight, to achieve that range as what I could find indicate that model has a typical range of 7,635 nautical miles.

[Jewbacca]

Fuel burn rate can be cut a whole lot simply by throttling back on the engines — longer flight (in distance and time), but slower.

The ranges you see are typically assuming a 90% throttle because time-in-air is much more important when you have a cargo of live people who are getting pissed off.

Cargo flights do this a fair amount, and would be the correct comparison.

[edwinland]

Or perhaps they took advantage of favorable winds? Not something you could build a schedule around but something you could know a few days in advance.

[Steely Tom]

The plane must have been modified, for example, limiting weight, to achieve that range as what I could find indicate that model has a typical range of 7,635 nautical miles.

Several passengers noted that the sink water in the rear lavatories smelled a bit strange.

[TexasGator]

“The plane must have been modified, for example, limiting weight, to achieve that range as what I could find indicate that model has a typical range of 7,635 nautical miles. “

Pilots are familiar with winds aloft and verify during their pre-flight weather checks.

Add 100 knot tail-winds and see what the range is.

[Moonman62]

The plane must have been modified, for example, limiting weight, to achieve that range as what I could find indicate that model has a typical range of 7,635 nautical miles.

...

From other articles I read, it was quite a bit less than full.

[Moonman62]

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/THT64

...

It was over 600 mph most of the flight and got close to 700 mph, so I’d say they did get favorable winds.

[rllngrk33]

Must have had some good tail winds.

[TexasGator]

https://www.globalair.com/airport/weather/winds.aspx

[Rurudyne]

Maybe in the air all in one go, but PanAm 18602 went the long way around in WW2: https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that-accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Those pesky Great Circle Routes. It seems like Tahiti - Los Angeles - Paris is heading exactly the wrong way. If FEELS like (without looking at a globe) that Tahiti - Calcutta - Tehran - Paris would be the right way.

[max americana]

I travel to the Philippines 2x a year and those Pacific flights average 10 hours. Some take 12. Sitting on your ass for 10 hrs ain’t good for your health. I learned years ago before the flight to stand up for the 3 hours pre flight internationally from the US Embassy guy I travelled from Seattle to the RP. great tip.

[mad_as_he$$]

I used to fly SFO to Taiwan. Brutal.

[Gay State Conservative]

IIRC QANTAS recently did Sydney to JFK non-stop. I think the flight had a minimum number of passengers and little or no cargo/luggage.

The longest flight I've ever been on was JFK to Hong Kong...15:55 from wheels up to wheels down.At the end I thought I was gonna die (I was in Cattle Class).This flight would have been close to 20 hours

[Gay State Conservative]

Tahiti-LA-Paris gives you a tail wind. Saves lots of expensive jet fuel.

[ThunderSleeps]

What I heard/read - light passenger load and forecast of favorable winds, so they ran the numbers and said yeah, we can do this...

[sphinx]

COVID-19 must be more contagious than we thought if it’s now being transmitted through aircraft refueling lines. Otherwise, you’d think they’d have landed long enough to refuel. Nobody needed to get off the plane.

[nwrep]

No. It was less than 16hours.

[libertylover]

Those pesky Great Circle Routes. It seems like Tahiti - Los Angeles - Paris is heading exactly the wrong way. If FEELS like (without looking at a globe) that Tahiti - Calcutta - Tehran - Paris would be the right way.

I was thinking the same thing too. But I remember in the 1970s I saw one of those little books they had for airline schedules. Pan Am had 2 flights per week to New York from India (or was it Hong Kong?) and one went east and the other went west.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The "Great Circle Mapper PPT-CDG" shows this great circle route -- right over LA! This route is 9,765 miles.

I was surprised at how good my blind guess at a stop in Calcutta was. This route is 8,681 + 4,878 = 13,559 miles -- about 50% longer than going over LAX! But this is one of those cases where picking a straight-ish route on a map projection really misses the best route.

Flying to Narita, Japan gets you a better East-West Route, 5,863 + 6,048 = 11,911 miles. Still over 2,000 miles longer than the great circle route. Flying over the Kamchatka Peninsula shaves off another 800 miles and is about the best you can do flying east-to-west.

Off topic...there's a fascinating story of a Pan Am Clipper caught on the flight from San Francisco to Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed and being forced to get back to New York City the "wrong way" around the world. Pan Am's Pacific Clipper Journey in World War 2: The 'Round The World Saga of the "Pacific Clipper" by John A. Marshall.