Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: SCL, MCT, LGW and a variety of 1W lounges in between.
Programs: BA Mucci (Seigneur et Ingenieur des Appareils Volants (Gold)), QF (WP and LTG), AA EXP, GF Gold
Posts: 3,931
The Paris LBG-AKL-LBG round the world flight in an A340-200 was probably the longest by a scheduled airliner as it went all the way round. That was a demonstration flight by Airbus. The LHR-SYD non-stop delivery of a 744 was carrying passengers. A 777 was delivered Seattle-KL direct but not sure about pax on-board.
The Airbus flight has one of my favourite quotes of all time by a pilot being interviewed. It runs something like this:
Interviewer: So, now that you have built an aircraft which can fly around the world with one stop, what is next? Will you build one that can fly around the world non-stop?
Tired Airbus Pilot: Well, our marketing department have done a survey and apparently there is not much demand from business class passengers to spend 36 hours sitting in an aircraft to land back at the place they first took off from.
Various prop flights were 23-28 hours long, but not as far.