Talk:Longest flights

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)

TK’s flights to Sydney in 2000

Hi, I encountered some news from 2000 on the internet about Turkish Airlines flights that operated between Istanbul Atatürk Airport and Sydney Airport for the 2000 Summer Olympics (TK1042 being the outbound flight). I believe these flights are worth to be mentioned under non-scheduled commercial longest flights. Any thoughts? 46.106.250.188 (talk) 20:51, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

One addition: Qantas also operated non-scheduled commercial flights between Sabiha Gökçen Airport and Perth Airport in 2015. 46.106.250.188 (talk) 21:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi There, this is great research in seeing if there are flights overlooked by this article! The TK SAW-SYD flight for the olympics that you found is particularly interesting in that there were commercial operations enabled on its legs back to Istanbul (without the athletes)... In this case however, I don't believe the flights can be added for a few reasons:

[1] Not enough reliable/citable sources

[2] No mention that this flight was non-stop (several of the sources correctly cite "Direct flight" (stopping somewhere sow SAW-XXX-SYD)

[3] Logic seems to suggest this couldn't have been nonstop as TK had just received its first longhaul widebody jet at the beginning of 2000 (an A340-300)

[4] the GC Distance from SAW to SYD is 14,914 km

[5] The A343 published range (with standard config/passenger load) is 13,500 km (per Airbus website) - even allowing for greater economies with the known light load of 119 pax per the cited articles, I would *guess* that it would be pushing it to have the range (plus reserves to make this)

[6] Finally one last clue, an article from the time cites the delayed TK flight landing at SYD, not only just 2 minutes before closing, but after "20 hours of travelling", which a nonstop flight would be much shorter (looking at other long flights at the time (or even the CDG-AKL A342 flight from 8 years previous did that much longer distance in less than 20 hours), so therefore I believe this was definitely not a nonstop flight (annoyingly I've found it impossible to find the 2000 Annual Report from THY, which would have helped potentially, and it isn't mentioned in their 2001 annual report...

So I would vote not to add this flight as again uncitable and properly very unlikely to have been nonstop, great digging though to find this!

On your other found flight (PER-IST), that is very well documented/citable - but I would think un-noteworthy for the sake of this article as the distance was not record-breaking in 2015 unfortunately. Still and interesting flight though!

Cheers and great finding of these flight! DigitalExpat (talk) 10:11, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Aircalin Noumea-Bangkok Suvarnabhumi-Paris CDG

Aircalin has began flights from Noumea in New Caledonia to Paris CDG via Bangkok Suvarnabhumi using a Airbus A330-900neo today, so I think we should add it onto the list of Direct flights with stops, this route is the Second longest direct flights with stops by distance after Singapore Airlines's Singapore-Manchester-Houston flights, I think it's time to add it to the list Metrosfan (talk) 01:05, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I am also thinking we should expand the Longest direct flights with stops list from 23 routes to 25 Metrosfan (talk) 01:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Metrosfan - entirely agree - I was waiting for it to actually go wheels up/start operating which it did about 14 hours ago now :) Well spotted/watched on this one! (I'd encourage you to go ahead and add such flights in the future if feeling in the editing mood - Wiki only gets better thanks to great minds like yours (alternatively, spotting and continuing to flag it up here will make sure the wiki crowd can add it as well (#teamwork!) :) ) DigitalExpat (talk) 07:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Next week, we'll get it to 25 with the launch of TK's IST-CRU-SCL flight (but it will fall back to 24 potentially on March 25 as CA (currently) due to end PEK-BCN-HAV, and to 23 items on April 1, as SQ ends the SIN-MAN-IAH flight) DigitalExpat (talk) 07:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@DigitalExpat is Air China really ending flights to Havana? By the way we can move all the flights by one level above and add the 24th and then 25th flight from those respective dates to keep it at 25 Metrosfan (talk) 08:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Fair point on CA PEK-BCN-HAV route...you're correct, I should have phrased it "currently not scheduled post end of March" (but that's the end of NW25 season...so it's not announced ended, just no schedules declared post March (source - https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/240807-canw24cu )

On your other recommendation, I went ahead and updated the direct flights table to 25 items long (correcting it along the way as well - the AC DEL-LHR-YYC flight is not #24, it's the #32 longest direct flight)

Thanks and Cheers @Metrosfan! DigitalExpat (talk) 17:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@DigitalExpat Also according to https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/241211-v0dec24can, Venezuela's flag carrier Conviasa will add flights from Caracas to Guangzhou via Moscow Vnukovo from 20 December 2024 using Airbus A340-600, this route is also very long considering it's one of the only two existing flights from East Asia to South America, I think you should also add it Metrosfan (talk) 02:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, for the discontinued longest flights list, I think we should reduce it from 32 to 30 Metrosfan (talk) 02:57, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestion, suggest we start a dedicated talk topic on this list length (and worth pausing to reassess all the article's lists lengths...it's been 3.5 years since last discussion on it...

(nb - the growing length of both the direct flights & discontinued nonstop flights are great signs of the quality of this article improving due to great work from editors contributing...they are now quite historically definitive for these notable flights) DigitalExpat (talk) 05:00, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Metrosfan I think aeroroutes is slightly wrong on this one, looking at the timings, it will either sit on the ground a very long time or more likely it will be CCS-HAV-VKO-CAN like the last time Conviasa operated this route and this is being reported by other sources. Since we dont have to add it to the table until it's operational, it shoukd be clear here in a couple weeks :) 👍 DigitalExpat (talk) 03:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@DigitalExpat It is now 20 December, so I think we should add it now Metrosfan (talk) 03:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Metrosfan - yes I went and redid the number calculation the 12:30 duration between CCS and VKO means it won't have time to stop at HAV, suggesting that this indeed a one stop flight. Even though it isn't due to go wheels up until later today (5:30pm Caracas time), I went ahead and added it after finding a few more reliable sources that this indeed a 1 stop flight for Conviasa's indefatigable A346. Cheers and thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 08:12, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

love to see so much cooperation :D that's all i wanted to say haha! FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 04:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

oh woww!!! this above reply ^ was my 1000th edit! what a funny coincidence! FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 04:04, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@FlyingScotsman72 Congratulations @FlyingScotsman72, lots of great contributions there making Wikipedia all the better! Also happy to report that the flight is live on fr24/adcb and indeed is going nonstop CCS-VKO confirming those supplied citations are right. (now I'm curious how long this route will be operated before quietly disappearing like so many of Conviasa's routes, will keep eyes peeled 👍 DigitalExpat (talk) 04:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@DigitalExpat I think it is time you add the link to the flight information in flightradar24 for Conviasa's flight from Caracas to Guangzhou via Moscow Vuknovo Metrosfan (talk) 10:01, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@Metrosfan agree a link is needed, but fr24 isn't a superior source to show there is a scheduled commercial flight, will try and source it from cirium or similar, but might be challenging as Conviasa isn't even showing it on their website... Will see what we can do here 👍 DigitalExpat (talk) 11:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

What should be the article's List Lengths? (revisited)

Hi All, as @Metrosfan correctly pointed out, the discontinued nonstop flights list has reached 32 entries...(and my recent edit brought the direct flights up to a round number of 25)...sounds like a good time to reassess if some haircuts are needed , revisiting the topic of what should be appropriate list lengths for this article.

Previously discussed last in March 2021 (including participant was the orginal progenitor of the nonstop list in the first place!) - Discussion is in the Talk Archives (have to expand the question) here: Question: Why Limited to 30? )

The article has 5 main tables today:

◆ 1) Nonstop Flights (active): 30 entries

◆ 2) Direct Flights: 25 entries

◆ 3) NonStop Flights (discontinued): 32 entries

◆ 4) By Type (Active): 75 entries (Length unconstrained, but length changes when aircraft types launched/retired (or new research is found) - all very infrequent (but new types will come to be launched)

◆ 5) By Type (Record): 95 entries (Length unconstrained, but length changes when aircraft types launched/retired (or new research is found) - all very infrequent (but new types will continue to be launched)

My question: should we reassess the length of the lists for sake of article length, health, notability (eg: a list of "top 10" versus "top 70" longest movies have a different ring/impact to them...)

There's some relevant discussion in that old discussion from March 2021 linked above but believe (it's always) worth asking a new... DigitalExpat (talk) 05:46, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

For my personal opinion:

Table #1: 25 or 30

Table #2: 20 or 25

Table #3: 25 or 30

Table 4 & 5 - leave as is/organic

My opinion/logic/thoughts points:

a) In a reverse from my initial opinion in March 2021, I think constraint on the numbers make for a healthier, more useful, more impactful article. for the "main" table #1 - the potential to drop to #25 would also mean that by the time next years' Project Sunrise launches (and other new routes that technology (eg: Trent1000 engine remediation, a350-1000 roll out, etc...) (re)enables - that the top 25 will also be ~13,300 km+ (a notable number in that is 1/3 of the way around the world (using the commonly used equatorial circumference) , so a nice dovetail there as well..

b) Table #2 (direct flights) - capping this at 20 would bring distances more into line with the top 25 of Table 1

c) Table #3 (discontinued flights) - capping this to 20 would bring flights to at least being within the 21st century (~25 years...)

d) Alternatively, capping all 3 tables at the same number (top 25) could make for nice article uniformity as well... DigitalExpat (talk) 08:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)