Buckle up for 18-hour journey on world's longest flight

Passengers board a Qatar Airways' Boeing 777-200LR, which may be used for the new Auckland and Santiago routes. Photo: AP

A new record-breaking flight between Doha and Auckland would be the longest in the world covering a distance of 9,030 miles, according to media reports.

Nilanjana Gupta

Published: Thu 28 Jan 2016, 12:12 PM

Last updated: Wed 3 Feb 2016, 12:32 PM

What's the longest you have travelled by air? No matter how exciting the destination waiting at the other end (Vegas? Australia?), but a long-haul flight just takes away the fun.
That leads us to this question:

The world record of longest scheduled direct flight has been fought fiercely in the recent past. If Qatar Airways' latest expansion plans are to be believed, it would bag the spot of the world's longest flight from Qantas Airways. The non-stop route between Doha and Auckland is estimated to cover the 9,034 miles journey in 18 hours and 34 minutes, as reported by The Guardian.
The Qantas flight from Dallas to Sydney - which is the current longest scheduled passenger flight - covers 8,578 miles in a whopping 16 hours and 55 minutes. The Qantas flight is also set to be overtaken by Emirates when it launches a new route from Dubai to Panama City in March this year. The Emirates flight will take 17 hours 41 minutes.
Read: Emirates announces world's longest non-stop flight

Dubai - View from AboveEnjoy a stunning drone's eye view of Dubai. For more aerial videos of 18 Emirates destinations across five continents, visit http://bit.ly/view_from_above
Posted by Emirates on Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The new flight will exceed Emirates' existing longest non-stop routes - Dubai to Los Angeles at 16 hours and 35 minutes, and Dubai-Houston at 16 hours and 20 minutes - in terms of regular commercial service by distance.
Etihad Airways' Abu Dhabi-Los Angeles (16 hours and 30 minutes) and Abu Dhabi-San Francisco (16 hours and 15 minutes) services are among the other longest regularly-scheduled non-stop commercial flights by distance.

Reports about Qatar Airways' new routes emerged when CEO Akbar Al Baker told Bloomberg Business that it planned to launch new long flights to Auckland and Santiago.
According to that report, the airline will use the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft for the new routes, which can seat 217 passengers in economy class and 42 in premium and has a range of 10,900 miles, fully loaded.

Qatar Airways' CEO Akbar Al Baker talking to journalists about his airline's plans, during the January 2016 Bahrain air show. Photograph: Reuters
So are you ready to buckle up? We leave you with this video on how to deal with the stress of long flights. Have a pleasant one!