The world’s new longest flight-route becomes available

Qatar Airways.Photo: pixabay.com

The world’s longest flight has opened between Qatar and New Zealand.

‘We have officially landed in New Zealand’, tweeted Qatar Airways on Monday morning.

Qatar Airways’ new 14,535 km (9031 mile) route between Doha and Auckland was completed with a Boeing 777-200LR. The aircraft spent 16 hours, 23 minutes in the air, which was five minutes less than scheduled. The tour extended through ten different time zones.

The Qatar Airways stated that there were four pilots on the journey, as well as a cabin crew of 15 people. Altogether, the cabin crew served 1,100 cups of tea and coffee, 2,000 cold drinks and 1,036 meals.

New Zealand’s Trade Minister, Todd McClay, offered welcome, and said it would strengthen both trade and tourism, with an estimated value of approximately 500 million.

Weekly aircraft have the capacity to transport cargo of 116 tons. For New Zealanders, that may be calculated as equivalent to 1162 sheep. Furthermore, the flight can carry 400 kg of food, which is convertible to 5,263 kiwi fruit, said Qatar Airways.

Otherwise, items of statistical interest for the mega-flight have come in; that at 17 hours and 45 minutes, ‘it is longer than watching the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ trilogies combined’, according to the airline.

That is true insofar as the ordinary versions of the films, which total 17 hours and 20 minutes. But the extended versions of the two trilogies last 20 hours and 40 minutes.

Air India’s flights between New Delhi and San Francisco are the longest in distance in the air, but when measuring ground distance, it is Qatar’s new route that is victorious, as it is marginally longer than the Emirates 14,200 km (8823 mile) route between Dubai and Auckland which opened in March last year.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today