Qatar Airways now claims to hold the title of the world’s longest regularly scheduled airline flight by flying time.
The carrier launched its service to Auckland, New Zealand, from Doha on Sunday, flown on a Boeing 777. The Auckland to Doha route, which usually faces more headwind, is said to take 17 hours and 30 minutes and covers a distance of more than 9,000 miles, according to a press release by the carrier.
Qatar Airlines’ new service edges it past Emirates’ Dubai to Auckland flight that lasts 16 hours and 5 minutes, and has a return flight that clocks 17 hours, 20 mins, USA Today reports.
While the flight might have the claim to the longest by time, it is not the longest existing flight by distance: a claim currently held by Air India’s 9,399 mile-long route from Delhi to San Francisco, BBC reports. According to Flight Radar, the inaugural flight QTR921 is still airborne and has four more hours to go before it lands in Doha.
