Can 18 Hours in the Air Be Bearable?

Singapore Airlines now flies more than 9,500 miles between Newark and Singapore, and more super-long routes are in the offing, with new amenities to ease the pain.

Last Thursday, the world’s longest nonstop flight — a 9,534-mile, 18-and-a-half-hour journey from Singapore to Newark on Singapore Airlines’ new Airbus A350-900 Ultra Long Range aircraft — touched down, raising the bar for super-long-haul travel, which most industry experts define as any flight over 8,000 miles one way.

New, lighter and more fuel efficient, dual-engine aircraft — including the Airbus models and Boeing’s Dreamliner — make flying for nearly a day economically viable as the number of ultra-long-haul flights increases.

Singapore’s new route, which takes 18 hours and 45 minutes in the opposite direction, isn’t the only rear-numbing new itinerary. In March, Qantas Airways launched a London-to-Perth route. It is the third longest flight at about 9,000 miles, according to the aviation industry consultancy OAG, after Qatar Airways’s Doha-Auckland route. In September, Cathay Pacific Airways began flying 8,153 miles, its longest route, between its base in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. In late November, Air New Zealand plans to add service between Auckland and Chicago, its longest flight at a distance of about 8,200 miles.