The last couple of years have been a very successful time period for the longer commercial flights as known as the `ultra long haul` market, which is today`s one of the most popular trends in aviation. In order to eliminate the long hours wasted in airports during the layovers, passengers choose to stay longer hours on air, but arrive at their destinations earlier. Similarly, airlines were thinking the same way for many years in order to increase their operational efficiency by minimizing the time spent on the ground. On top of that, planes are using a big portion of their fuel during the take-off and having one take-off instead of two would decrease the fuel costs significantly. However, this was not feasible until a few years ago, because the technology on the planes was not enough to provide the necessary fuel efficiency for a profitable flight. So, the long-haul market stayed as a niche market difficult to profit from due to the amount of fuel that had to be carried on board without having enough passengers to compensate for that.
There isn`t any exact definition nor a range / time limit for ultra-long flights but we started to see the major examples after 2000s. One of the first examples of this trend was seen with the Airbus` A340-500, which was introduced in late 2002 as the longest range commercial aircraft with a theoretical range of around 9.000 nautical miles (16.660km). In late 2006 there was even an updated version of this aircraft as he A340-500IGW (Increased Gross Weight) with a range of 9.200 nautical miles (17,000 km). Singapore Airlines used A340-500s between the years 2004 and 2013 for the route New York – Singapore with a distance of 8.285 nm (15.340 km) lasting over 18 hours 30 minutes, the longest regularly scheduled commercial flight around that time. However, the 4-engine layout of the plane was causing it to be inefficient and as the fuel prices increased, Singapore Airlines cancelled this flight in 2013.
In late 2006 Boeing introduced the long range version of their Boeing 777, the 777-200LR (Longer Range) as the `Worldliner` with a 8.555 nm (15.840 km) theoretical range. Actually, in order to demonstrate its capabilities, before entering into service on November 9th, 2005 a 777-200LR attempted a record flight with 8 pilots from Hong-Kong to London by taking the east route rather than taking the usual westward 5.300 nm route, more than doubling the length of the flight. So, they broke the Guinness Record with a distance of 11.664 nm (21.602 km) and a time spent 22 hours and 42 minutes on air. But of course, apart a strong headwind, the 777-200LR would be unable to fly that far with a full load of passengers and cargo. For the commercial flights however, this plane took for a period the longest regularly scheduled flight by Qatar Airways for the Doha – Auckland route with a distance of 14.535 km and 16 hours 10 minutes.
With Airbus A380`s entry into the service in late 2007, there was another chapter in the ultra long haul flights, because it was capable of carrying more than 500 passengers a distance over 8.500 nm (15.700 km). The plane has been started to be used for the busy long distance routes by its users and especially by its biggest customer Emirates. However, in time it became harder and harder to fill the plane with enough passengers close to its full capacity to overcome its fixed costs and make the routes profitable. Actually, the latest versions of Boeing 747, the 747-400ER (Extended Range) and 747-8I were able to cover the similar ranges, too however their design was based on the 40 years old version and it has the same disadvantage with A380 having 4 engines. The fuel efficiency was becoming more a priority than the passenger capacity for the airlines and the advent of long range twin jet powered wide body planes gave them more flexibility at lower costs.
Another important player in this `long range twin jet powered wide body` segment was the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which put into service in late 2011 with its first version 787-8. However rather than the initial model 787-8, the longer variant 787-9, which put into service in 2014, was capable of flying the longer distances above 8.000 nm (14.800 km) with its 290 passengers by achieving better fuel efficiency at the same time compared to its competitors.
Recent example of this trend came from Airbus with the introduction of A350 XWB (extra wide body) family. A350-900 has been introduced on 2015 with a range of 8.100 nm (15.000 km) and later on 2018 the bigger version A350-1000 was introduced with an even greater range of 8.700 nm (16.100 km). However, the pinnacle of the family came late 2018 with the introduction of the ULR version of A350-900. The main change over the standard aircraft is a modified fuel system, enabling the fuel carrying capacity to be increased by 24,000 liters to 165,000 liters and that enabled the airplane to fly distances of 9.700 nm (18.000 km). Singapore Airlines started to use A350-900 ULR for its route Singapore to New York on October 2018 with a distance of 8.285 nm (15.344 km) again becoming the world`s longest regularly scheduled flight with time spent on air around 18 hours and 30 minutes.
The latest initiative about ultra long haul market however happened in late 2019 with the `Project Sunrise` by the Australian Airline company Qantas. As having the disadvantage of being far away from many countries, Qantas has to perform many ultra long haul flights, and with their future aim connecting any two cities in the world, they came up with a project of making the longest flights first between New York and Sydney and later between London and Sydney. This project would enable them to analyze the side effects of ultra long flights on passengers, too.
The first flight happened on 19th October 2019 becoming with the longest non-stop passenger flight, which took 19 hours and 16 minutes to fly from New York to Sydney on a 8.750 nm (16.200 km) distance. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner used in the flight landed in Sydney with 70 minutes of extra fuel. On 16th November 2019, their record-braking second flight happened between London and Sydney. That flight represents the longest distance covered by a normal commercial airline passenger plane with 9.610 nm (17.800 km) distance and the longest time of 19 hours and 19 minutes. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner landed in Sydney with 6,300 kilograms of fuel this time, in other words about 100 minutes of flying.
In the upcoming years, we will see more examples of this ultra long flights, especially after the introduction of Boeing`s newest airplane family 777X. Boeing claims 777-8 and 777-9 will be the world’s largest and most efficient twin-engine jets. They would introduce new technologies like folding wingtips or latest GE9X engines specifically engineered for 777X both for improving fuel efficiency and providing greater range. They claim the 777X will deliver 10% lower fuel use and emissions and 10% lower operating costs than the competition. The range of 777-8 will be up to 8,730 nm (16,170 km), where the bigger version 777-9 will have a shorter range, but would be able to carry 426 passengers on board.
