According to Bloomberg News, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd is planning to reroute the New York to Hong Kong flight service to avoid the Russian airspace, which would be the longest commercial passenger flight in the world by distance. It would take approximately 17 hours.
The airline is planning to fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport, flying over the Atlantic Ocean, the United Kingdom, Southern Europe through Central Asia, as per a memo to a staff of Cathay Pacific and seen by Bloomberg News. The distance of 10,326 miles, equivalent to 16,618 kilometers, would exceed the New York service of Singapore Airlines Ltd, which takes approximately 17 and a half hours for covering 15,349 kilometers, as shown by data from FlightRadar24.
A new contender could be in the offing
A Cathay Pacific spokesperson stated that Airbus SE’s A350-1000 has the capacity of operating the route that would fly over the Arctic and navigate through the Russian airspace. Plenty of Asian airlines are staying away from the Russian skies due to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis.
The airline said that it is keeping a tab on the tailwinds, diminishing benefits, and that jet streams are usually stronger in the colder months.
Cathay Pacific seeks overflight permits to operate the service, a standard procedure for starting flights on new routes. Before the pandemic, the airlines had drastically reduced the schedule, and the carrier was operating up to 3 round trips every day between JKF and Hong Kong.
The most recent flight of Cathay stopped its New York Hong Kong flight before it continued flying over the Pacific and the Asian hub without the need to enter Russian airspace. The new route being worked out will not require the aircraft to have a stopover, thereby making the flight affordable and cost-effective, as reported by Bloomberg News.
The longest flight in the world is getting longer
Aside from Cathay Pacific, many other airlines plot ways to avoid the Russian airspace, mainly the route between Europe and Asia. Japan Airlines Co Ltd reworked its route service to London’s Heathrow through Canada and Alaska instead of flying over Siberia originating from Tokyo’s Haneda airport. This has added an extra four and a half hours to the already prevailing flight time of 11 hours and 55 minutes trip.
However, these flights are supposed to be temporary as the cost the airlines have to incur on high oil prices and the uncertainty prevailing over the accessibility of the Russian skies.
The 20-hour trip of Qantas Airways Ltd that connects Sydney with New York and London by using an ultra-long-range Airbus jet is still in the planning phase after the launch was deferred due to the pandemic. The airline carried out a flying test and named it Project Sunrise in 2019.
