When travelling, some flights may seem like they never end.
And with the incredible range of today's aircraft,
some journeys can have mind boggling flight times.
But beyond the fact that even regional flights can seem
long and the average traveller may be counting the minutes
wishing for arrival,
what officially determines whether a flight is technically deemed long
haul?
Let's explore this topic for today's video.
Across the board, there are five different categories of flights,
and long haul travel constitutes the last two.
The three shorter flight categories are one regional 2 short
haul and three medium haul.
Short haul flights across the board are broadly determined to
be any service that has a flight time of under
3 hours.
Within short haul flights exists A subcategory known as regional
flights,
which are usually operated by shorter range regional aircraft in
the US by regional contractors and connect small cities with
larger hubs within a given region,
hence the name.
Medium haul flights are longer than short haul flights,
with scheduled flight times of between 3:00 and 6:00 hours.
Officially, long haul flights are classified as those with a
flight time between 6:00 and 12:00 hours.
In former times before, flights often had flight times that
exceeded 12 hours in the air.
There was no ultra long haul category,
but now any flight that exceeds 12 hours in scheduled
flight time will be categorized as ultra long haul.
There are hundreds of examples out there,
but two random examples include
Air France's service from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to
San Francisco International Airport and
Delta's service from Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International to Ministro Pistarini
International Airport in Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
Some journeys that can be classified as ultra long haul
include
Emirates's nearly 14 hour journey from Dubai International Airport to
Sydney Airport,
as well as Qantas service from London Heathrow to Perth
in
WA.
Then, of course, there's the longest flight in the world,
which takes passengers between Singapore and New York.
In some situations, exploring how a flight in One Direction
on a route can fall into one category while the
return journey will fall into an alternative category is fascinating.
Jetblue's 6:30 PM departure from Boston Logan International Airport is
scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles at
10:07 PM after six hours and 37 minutes in the
air.
This officially classifieds this journey as long haul.
However, in the opposite direction.
The carrier's 11:59 PM departure is scheduled to arrive at
8:36 AM after only five hours and 37 minutes.
Flying a medium hall service.
Have you flown on any ultra long haul flights?
Let us know which ones by leaving a comment down
below.
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