Talk:Longest flights

(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)

As always @DoubleClawHammer is a bastion of knowledge, thanks DCH, you're absolutely right AF continues to operate that A318 through NW25 season (and presumably into NS26) (source: https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/251021-afnw25318 ) Cheers! DigitalExpat (talk) 18:21, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Zeppelins

No mention of commercial Zeppelin flights in the history section, and nothing in the definitions to restrict that of a commercial flight to one operated by a heavier-than-air aircraft. A regular, commercial (as in, carrying fare-paying passengers, mail, and/or freight) service between Germany and Brazil was operated by the Zeppelin Company between 1929 and 1937, with the nonstop flight regularly exceeding 100 hours. The longest actual flight time I can find was on October 21-25, 1936, when the Hindenburg flew what is now FRA to SNZ - 5,954 miles in 111 hours and 41 minutes. Either the definition needs to be changed to exclude commercial flights by airships, or this needs to be mentioned, and the claim that the first commercial transatlantic flight was by a B-314 on June 28, 1939 needs to be corrected (it was likely one of the Graf Zeppelin's Friedrichshafen-Lakehurst flights in 1929, but I'm having trouble establishing which was the first truly commercial, as distinct from just carrying crew and non-paying guests). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.169.121.99 (talk) 00:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

This anonymous comment is a good one. Based on the distinct differences between Airship and Fixed-Wing flight, I'd suggest we not lump in Airship based travel.

My recommendation for the anonymous editor is that building a new distinct article about record breaking airship flights would be best. For the meantime, I have added a couple of centences with wording to expressly make it clear we are talking about.

Cheers All DigitalExpat (talk) 19:25, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

References

Singapore Airlines Singapore-Manchester-Houston

Can someone add SQ's former Singapore-Manchester-Houston route which used to be operated until last month on the discontinued list? I don't know what the actual length and time of the route was, one note about how only the fifth freedom route between Manchester and Houston could also be added since flights to Manchester are still operational as they just only no longer continue to Houston, thanks! Metrosfan (talk) 07:27, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

great point - tagging the experts for you! @DigitalExpat @DoubleClawHammer. Also (for who I tagged) I've noticed you two haven't really been active on this page recently? I'm concerned that things are falling apart without your eyes seeing things... FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 18:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Good shout about this very long direct flight (and before its launch on 30 Oct 2016, its predecessor of SIN-DME-IAH was another one, but with a much shorter distance). For this article though, it current doesn't have a table of discontinued direct (1-stop) flights (unless that's changed recently?) and even its longest leg (SIN-MAN) isn't long enough to make the list. However the flight is notable in other respects, it does serve as additional end point for Singapore Airlines' Kangaroo Route and while that table doesn't call out by name (too frequent of changes/citation load would be huge), its there in the table allowing MAN to be a Kangaroo Route endpoint :)

PS - @FlyingScotsman72 I believe the rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated :) Sorry just available time had shifted (plus this article is in excellent hands here :) )

Cheers! DigitalExpat (talk) 15:36, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Units

Most measurements of distance in this page do not have any SI units. Can I request that these should be included? I haven't done so as there are already miles and nautical miles. Wikipediun2000 (talk) 16:18, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi there @Wikipediun2000, not quite sure I understand the question here - the article is based in an SI unit (KM unless we want to use the true SI unit of Meters, but I don't think that would be an improvement, inline with the subject matter). All numbers I can see in the article are also written using Wiki best practice of the {convert} tag as well - perhaps I am missing something here - could you explain more on your question so we can all understand better?

Thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 15:45, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Remove MIA-TPE envisioned flight?

One of the longest living routes/flights under "envisioned flights" is the MIA-TPE route (its cited source is over a decade ago now...and even thought Starlux continues to make inroads with new TPAC routes, this long route from MIA-TPE requires a polar routing over Russian Airspace (even the optimal GC route is just about 14k long). Suggesting for article health that this bullet point is removed as not credible/not likely to happen anytime soon with US/Russia airspace still blocked, interested in others thoughts instead of unilaterally removing it? Thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 11:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

This is exclusively COMMERCIAL flights.

What about the military and non-commercial flights? Many of those are much longer, and far more significant. Alternatively this page needs its name to be updated to include "commercial" in the title. - NiD.29 (talk) 03:04, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Temporary Brunei - London direct flights

https://www.flyroyalbrunei.com/united-kingdom/en/royal-brunei-airlines-introduces-direct-london-services-to-maintain-passenger-connectivity/

Brunei Airlines normally operate a thrice weekly BWN-DXB-LHR flight, but due to the war in Iran they have temporarily cancelled the Dubai stop (at least until the end of the month).

The westbound flight is BI3 and is scheduled to take 16h 45 min and the return flight is BI4 and will take 16h.

It is operated by the same B788 that does the normal route. ~2026-14671-65 (talk) 22:54, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi there, and welcome to Wikipedia anonymous editor, great spot!

Indeed a new/unusual route due to circumstances...looks like well short of the current top 30 list but compelling and interesting all the same, thanks for highlighting it!

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=BWN-LHR&MS=wls&DU=km DigitalExpat (talk) 06:30, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Disambiguation for cities that have airports with potential for need for it

As this article uses city pairs to describe the flights (which makes the article more accessible as people are less likely to be familiar with "Harry Reid International" than they are "Las Vegas" for example) - it makes for an optimal article for Wikipedia's audience.

Now for some cities with multiple airports capable and actively operating record breaking flights for long/ultra-long flights - disambiguation is needed and the format the article uses is a hyphen followed by short yet proper titling (eg the LON or TYO airports that certainly need them.

I would like to suggest that a talk topic would be useful to foster discussion and aligning on where disambiguation is needed and edits can be made accordingly.

To start the conversation, I would opine that:

1) for Dubai - DWC is not yet operating flights of potential record length requiring disambiguation between DXB and DWC

2) for Johannesburg, out of its 4 airports, only JNB has substantial commercial longhaul traffic

3) similarly for Mexico City's 3 airports, only MEX sees substantially long flights

4) Panama City's 2 airports have no potential conflict or likely misunderstanding

5) for Houston, IAH has all the long haul international traffic while Hobby has high volume, but all substantial short haul traffic

6) for Sydney, with the upcoming launch of WSI, SYD and WSI do need disambiguation at this time as the WSI scheduled flights are already ultra-longhaul (format of the abbreviation could be contender for shortening or more alignment to see what emerges as common labels in the future?)

Interested in collecting other insight/providing this thread for healthy discourse and coordinated change on this matter? DigitalExpat (talk) 15:44, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

There’s already an RfC on this exact topic at WT:WikiProject Aviation, I’d recommend weighing in there Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:45, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah thanks for this! I went searching in the active talk page and archives and can't seem to find the RfC - not to put work on your plate but could you point me in the right direction (RfC name? or link would be devine) - interested to see and align with the WikiProject, thanks for the heads up on this @Danners430! DigitalExpat (talk) 17:25, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Oops - nevermind I think I see what you are referring to now, the one on Airlines Destination Lists? ( Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#RfC - how to list airports in destination lists ) - will take a look at this and see if there is applicability here to this article, thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 17:27, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Looking for editors thoughts on flag icons' appropriateness/compliance with MOS as used in the lists?

Dear All, @Danners430 has raised a valid question on my talk page here ( User talk:DigitalExpat#c-DigitalExpat-20260619160400-Danners430-20260619154400 ) - regarding if the use of flags is not in compliance with MOS / best practice aligned for Wikipedia articles. I value his opinion and all the article contributors, so wanted to elevate a 1:1 conversation up to the article talk page here (which is a bit low traffic these days but a good first stop for conversation before seeking further conversation and opinions on the matter if need be from the larger editing community so we can keep the article best practice aligned? Please interested in everybody's thoughts here, thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

The simple fact is that flags are both excessive and purely decorative. They serve no purpose at all other than being eye-candy, which means they fail MOS:FLAGS. This is the exact same reason why they’ve been getting removed from airport statistics lists. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 16:25, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the link to the two other active conversations on it from recent weeks ( AMS and DTW talk pages), good to see conversation started on the matter.

As this is at minimum an inconsistency now across a number of articles all in the WP Group of Aviation, I would think that a WP Aviation Group topic would the ideal place to seek consensus (and uniformity) on this...what would think of this? I'm afraid the the Longest Flight article's talk page is very low traffic unfortunately (the edit frequency to the longest flights topic and variety of editors is below what I would consider average for an ideal WP article - would you be open with me opening a topic on the WP Aviation Group page to seek a better quality consensus on this that we can all make sure articles can benefit from for the better of WIkipedia? Thanks @Danners430 again. DigitalExpat (talk) 16:27, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah interesting, was headed to the Aviation WikiProject page to start the talk topic there and a quick read found that this is already addressed in thee WP Aviation style guide here: WP:AVISTYLES . A particular intact excerpt ( bolding for highlighting is mine)

In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited. When deciding whether flag icons are appropriate in a particular context, consider:

• Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative? Icons that differentiate among several parties (for example, icons used to indicate commander allegiance in Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945)) are likely to be useful, while icons that convey irrelevant or redundant information are usually not.
• Can flag icons be used consistently? In other words, do all the groups in a given list have usable flags? If only a few have them, it may be better to omit flags for all the items than to have a different layout for each one.
• Will adding icons disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text?

It would seem to me to support the logic of this article (unlike articles about just an airport like the AMS and DTW articles referenced above) about the planet Earth's longest flights in lists of City Pairs, to also use flags to enrich and convey that flight's city's (historically accurate flag) DigitalExpat (talk) 16:36, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Looking at other articles with topics concerning relationship of international city pairs if there precedent in non Aviation related articles for use of flags appropriately as per MOSFLAG to enhance topics, I have found these as potential references to help understand what other articles' editors have approached the subject and interpreted/applied the MOSFLAGS:

List of sovereign states

List of countries that border only one other country

List of enclaves and exclaves

List of countries and territories by number of land borders

(I'm sure there should be more examples out there about city-to-city relationships if people could find and share as admittedly the above 4 are all showing the same intrepretation of MOSFLAG which arguably makes it a potentially biased sampling(!)) DigitalExpat (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Respond to add that I did open the topic on the Aviation Wikiproject Talk page here, hopefully helps to make this a richer conversation, thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah I can see @Danners430 reverted my reversion of his change - I certainly don't want to start and EDITWAR here, I'm all for civil discourse and great outcomes in wiki articles when discussing intepretation, I won't re-revert of course, but for help for the reader, the current live page has the proposed change (removal of flags), my last revert of restoring the flags back can be seen in the most recent edit here. Will let this conversation thread have more voices added to it now hopefully and less of mine :) Cheers! DigitalExpat (talk) 17:19, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Having participated in the original discussions, I am against the use of flags. I cannot see what value they add to an article where the country name is included, and where they are used solely without country name they are even worse because the reader has to try to infer the country name (if it is actually relevant at all) from their knowledge of particular flags. As someone 60+ I would say I have a good knowledge of flags, but for many much younger readers I would hazard a guess that they are archaic and something of which they have little knowledge. Bottom line - we don't need them. 10mmsocket (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi @10mmsocket - great views, and good points I appreciate them! In re-reviewing your points as well as @Danners430 points that the article's use of flags is in violation of MOS:MOSFLAGS - in reading your comments and the 8 tenets of the MOS. You're absolutely right that the article previously failed tenet #3 ('Accompany flags with country names').

As this article is not about destinations from a given airport, nor airports operated to by an airline, but about exceptional superlative routes between origins/destinations themselves. Country name would be a definite improvement to the subject.

I was under the belief that the formatting choice to add flags to the article over 2,500 edits ago (and implicitly from all edits/editors since then that haven't removed them until @Danners430 bold edit 30 days ago) was to enrich the article with country pair identification but with brevity. I see your point is 100% correct and aligned with MOSFLAGS that it puts an unfair burden on the reader to know/read flags (eg: I don't think anyone can be expected to recognize the flag of British Ceylon) - suggest we get into compliance and do it properly so as to comply with that MOS? What are others thoughts? Thanks! DigitalExpat (talk) 06:35, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

I personally believe that the flags bring clarity, interest and much-needed colour to a long list article like this. I'm sure most of you will tell me that decorative aspects like colour aren't what Wikipedia is about, but this is my personal opinion so I will say it nevertheless. If people want to add country names as well then sure, I support that.

I'm also of the mind that 'if it aint broke, dont fix it'. Thousands of people have thoroughly enjoyed reading and editing this article with the flags for how long now? A decade at least? I personally believe that there are *some* editors on Wikipedia who feel inclined to make fundamental changes to entire commuinities on Wikipedia through enforcing policies with the strictest possible reading, rather than working on productive Wikipedia tasks and research, something that might not make you feel quite as virtuous as behaving like overzealous police...

Forgive my anger on this issue, but this desire to make big changes by enforcing strict rules is something that I've seen time and time again over just the last 2-3 years, something which beforehand I only ever saw a couple of times. FlyingScotsman72 (talk) 10:36, 25 June 2026 (UTC)