Long-haul flights are a bane for many but surprisingly the world’s longest flight doesn’t even fly in a straight line. The non-stop flight flies between New York and Singapore and covers a distance of 9,537 miles.
It takes about 19 hours and has an unusual and roundabout route. TikToker Travel with DJ discovered that the flight from John F. Kennedy Airport landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport. His video shows that the flight actually goes around north Greenland and flies across the North Pole then south over Russia and China.
People say that it was more practical to fly over Africa with one TikTok user saying “Why don’t they just fly straight east?” The video had more than 6.5 million views and lots of comments. This is perhaps one of the tricks of plane travel.
Travel Time
According to One Monroe Aerospace, most flights from the United States to Asia choose “curved” routes because they are not only safer but also quicker contrary to popular opinion. Because the Earth is round, flat maps are not a good indicator. Straight lines do not necessarily provide the shortest distance between two points.
A curved route will provide the fastest and most fuel-efficient flight for a commercial airline going from the United States to Asia or elsewhere. Commercial airlines use a Northern bent route across Canada and Alaska. As a result, they spend less time over the Pacific Ocean, which allows for emergency landings when necessary.
One Tik Tok user explained, “For those who are wondering, the planes fly to the top of the sphere as its circumference is smaller, thus traveling lesser distances & saves fuel. I for a split second wondered why it flew so far, then used a single brain cell and realized.”
A similar TikTok video also explains the same with regards to the world’s longest shipping route from Pakistan to Russia which covers almost 20k miles.
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The photo above is from a YouTube screengrab