Cathay's JFK-HKG Reroute Making the Longest Commercial Passenger Flight by Distance

Real World Aviation
#1

To avoid Russian airspace, Cathay Pacific Airways made a reroute for their JFK-HKG flight. The new route goes across the Atlantic, through UK and southern Europe to central Asia, before entering China. Cathay is now seeking overflight permits to operate the service. The route length reaches 16,618km, surpassing Singapore Airlines’ Singapore-New York service to become the longest commercial passenger flight by distance.

A spokeswoman claimed that their A350-1000s are capable of doing this route, and due to seasonal wind this new routing features strong tailwinds which makes it more favorable than the transpacific route.

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Read more about it here:
World’s Longest Passenger Flight by Cathay Pacific Plans to Avoid Russian Skies - Bloomberg

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#2

hong kong is not really involved with sanctions or aligned with countries that are putting on sanctions why would they need to do that

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#3

Insurance companies told them to avoid the airspace. Besides some of cathay’s planes are leased from european countries (for example A35K B-LXK)

Disclaimer: I saw this on a hk forum

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#4

Wow, didn’t see that until now. Awesome news!

#5

Longest Flight to use on Wikipedia.

Longest Flight

#6

Hey all, I have decided to try this in IF with the a350-900

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  • The flight plan is simply JFK-LHR then to HKG avoiding Russian airspace
  • Departing JFK now with callsign Cathay 845 heavy on expert server. (feel free to track me)
  • The plane is loaded exactly 100% with 20 hours of fuel
  • Distance of trip will be 8964nm
#7

I believe this is inaccurate.
Flight aware’s flight plan for the latest SQ23 flight gives a distance of 9196.8 nautical miles on skyvector, which is over 17000km. SQ23 is avoiding Russia airspace as well.
Hong Kong is in fact closer to the tip of Russia than Singapore.

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