March 23rd - Air New Zealand plans to launch one of the longest flights in the world, connecting New York with its hub in Auckland.
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air New Zealand is planning to launch one of the longest flights in the world, a direct track from New York to Auckland. From 17 September, the carrier will fly the 8,828-mile route three times per week, using a Boeing 787-9 – the same type used by Qantas for its even longer nonstop link from London to Perth. Currently, all but 27 per cent of the direct flight path is over the Pacific Ocean, but this is likely to be significantly modified according to wind patterns. I discuss all you need to know about the new flight, and whether long haul flights such as this are really needed.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast for the latest news on |
| 0:07.6 | travelling. And today we're going ultra long haul on what will become, I believe, the world's |
| 0:16.2 | fourth longest flight. Yes, New Zealand, the country that is still off limits for another |
| 0:25.2 | five weeks or so, is launching a new link from its largest city, Auckland, all the way to |
| 0:34.7 | New York, a distance of 8,828 miles. If you are flying from New York, |
| 0:45.0 | it's going to take you 17 and a half hours to cover the distance in the opposite direction, |
| 0:50.0 | more like 16 because of the prevailing jet stream. |
| 0:55.7 | The aircraft being used is Boeing 7879. |
| 1:00.5 | That's the same type, which is used by Qantas where it's even longer, non-stop link from London Heathrow to Perth. |
| 1:09.5 | Now that is 9,009 miles, and don't I know it because I've already |
| 1:14.8 | done that trip. But it will not be the longest route in the world because first of all |
| 1:23.1 | Singapore Airlines has a couple of New York routes or at least it will do by September when this |
| 1:29.7 | starts. One is going to JFK, which is 9,537 miles, the longest in the world, and the one to |
| 1:40.1 | Newark is just three miles shorter, although of course. |
| 1:45.0 | I mean, just because those are the most direct point-to-point routes, |
| 1:49.0 | airlines, aircraft will typically fly significantly longer |
| 1:54.0 | than because, well, they just need to take advantage of the winds |
| 1:59.0 | and follow a lot of airways through the skies which may not be the most |
| 2:05.1 | direct however i have done what i love doing when there's a new flight announcement and that is |
| 2:11.3 | putting the ends into a very good website called gc mapper stands for Great Circle Mapper, and it will show you exactly |
| 2:22.2 | where the plane is going to be going along its long journey if it were going the most direct way. |
| 2:29.9 | Now, it probably won't, but it's instructive anyway it goes from New York um quite rapidly |
... |
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