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LHR to Jfk, long haul or short?

LHR to Jfk, long haul or short?

Old Dec 9, 2018, 5:10 am
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LHR to Jfk, long haul or short?

Hello fellow flyertalkheads. Just having an explosive argument with friends regarding LHR to JFK being short or long haul, or if I can throw a curveball at you could it be considered the ever controversial medium haul??
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Regards, gav
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Old Dec 9, 2018, 5:14 am
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The route is considered as long haul. Your personal interpretation may vary.
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Old Dec 9, 2018, 5:18 am
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Originally Posted by GavinMansfield
Hello fellow flyertalkheads. Just having an explosive argument with friends regarding LHR to JFK being short or long haul, or if I can throw a curveball at you could it be considered the ever controversial medium haul??
​​​​​​
Regards, gav
I probably would have thrown it in with medium haul, but the amount of lax syd hkg jfk’s I’ve done this year would never consider it long haul 😂
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Old Dec 9, 2018, 5:21 am
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Originally Posted by Repooc17
The route is considered as long haul. Your personal interpretation may vary.
What metric do you use? I've seen people use the TripAdvisor forum standardisation of long haul being 10 hours or more when leaving the USA or 8 when flying from Europe. Another metric I've seen is popular is how many feature length films at a running time of 90 minutes can you watch? More than 6 is considered long haul where as 3-5 is medium and 2 or less is short haul.
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Old Dec 9, 2018, 5:29 am
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[deleted] Take it from someone who has flown more than 200,000 miles this year, and most of them for fun. Do I feel the route is long haul? Not really, but the general consensus says otherwise.

Last edited by StartinSanDiego; Dec 9, 2018 at 7:09 am Reason: Take it easy on the newbie
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Old Dec 9, 2018, 6:00 am
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I suppose the precise definition of "long" as in long haul is as open to interpretation as the definition of "explosive" in explosive argument. Did you come to blows? Or was it intense after a few jars? Perhaps more heated than explosive and LHR-JFK is perhaps more medium than long, but it's definitely not short.
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Old Dec 9, 2018, 6:30 am
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My personal guidelines are 5 hours or more is long-haul, 9 hours or more is ultra-long haul. YMMV
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Old Dec 11, 2018, 2:18 pm
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MCI-ORD is short-haul.
SFO-HKG is long-haul.
Add my vote to the medium-haul category for LHR-JFK.

I look at it this way: I'll tolerate Y for a crazy-low airfare to Europe. I won't do the same for Asia: I'll always buy J or use miles.
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Old Dec 11, 2018, 4:11 pm
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In terms of how Britain taxes it, it's long-haul.

wg
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Old Dec 11, 2018, 4:31 pm
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what are definitions re numbers of hours?

Originally Posted by wendyg
In terms of how Britain taxes it, it's long-haul.

wg
interesting!
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Old Dec 11, 2018, 4:34 pm
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Originally Posted by GavinMansfield
Hello fellow flyertalkheads. Just having an explosive argument with friends regarding LHR to JFK being short or long haul, or if I can throw a curveball at you could it be considered the ever controversial medium haul??
​​​​​​
Regards, gav
Neither; it's an afternoon at the bar.
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Old Dec 12, 2018, 2:24 am
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To me long haul is over 10 hours.
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Old Dec 12, 2018, 2:29 am
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Generally speaking, if airlines consider this route long enough to offer flat beds in business, I'll consider it a long haul flight

That would make the cutoff around 4.5 hours IIRC. In all cases, traversing the atlantic ocean is definitely long haul in the strictest sense of the term.
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Old Dec 12, 2018, 7:48 am
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Originally Posted by thebigben
Generally speaking, if airlines consider this route long enough to offer flat beds in business, I'll consider it a long haul flight

That would make the cutoff around 4.5 hours IIRC. In all cases, traversing the atlantic ocean is definitely long haul in the strictest sense of the term.
I know you're right in any context where long-haul has been given a legal definition (as it has for British taxes). But I still have a hard time thinking of a U.S. transcon as long-haul.

Perhaps it's because airlines have been pretty effective at conditioning us to accept a 737 on a transcon and a 757 on shorter TATLs. Mentally, I still associated long-haul with long-range and long-range with widebodies.
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Old Dec 12, 2018, 7:55 am
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Originally Posted by pinniped
I know you're right in any context where long-haul has been given a legal definition (as it has for British taxes). But I still have a hard time thinking of a U.S. transcon as long-haul.

Perhaps it's because airlines have been pretty effective at conditioning us to accept a 737 on a transcon and a 757 on shorter TATLs. Mentally, I still associated long-haul with long-range and long-range with widebodies.
Now this also becomes interesting the other way around with the BA A318 LCY-JFK service, and there's an A321XLR being worked on... I for one would welcome smaller long-range jets to go on long haul flights to smaller destinations without the need for connecting somewhere.

There is an association there - but as planes get better and airlines do away with the "hub" model it may become more and more dependent on destinations rather than just range.
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