# NWK to SIN Flight To Stop



## The Davy Crockett (Oct 25, 2012)

Singapore Airlines has announced that the world's longest non-stop flight will be cancelled sometime in the 4th quater of 2013. The Airbus used for the flight is being phased out and it will no longer fly non-stop from Newark to Singapore.

HERE is a link to the article.


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## PRR 60 (Oct 25, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> Singapore Airlines has announced that the world's longest non-stop flight will be cancelled sometime in the 4th quater of 2013. The Airbus used for the flight is being phased out and it will no longer fly non-stop from Newark to Singapore.
> 
> HERE is a link to the article.


Not good news for *jis*. He's taken that flight a number of times.


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## jis (Oct 25, 2012)

PRR 60 said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > Singapore Airlines has announced that the world's longest non-stop flight will be cancelled sometime in the 4th quater of 2013. The Airbus used for the flight is being phased out and it will no longer fly non-stop from Newark to Singapore.
> ...


I have taken three round trips on it, all before it went all Business Class. I am glad I got to see the North Pole before this flight went away.  They actually announced it on the flight!


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## MrFSS (Oct 25, 2012)

jis said:


> PRR 60 said:
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> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


What did it look like?


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 25, 2012)

MrFSS said:


> jis said:
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> > PRR 60 said:
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A candy cane w/o the hook and with a gold ball on top. :giggle:


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## CHamilton (Oct 25, 2012)

MrFSS said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > I am glad I got to see the North Pole before this flight went away.  They actually announced it on the flight!
> ...


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 25, 2012)

jis,

Did you see Santa's workshop? :unsure:


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## fairviewroad (Oct 25, 2012)

Maybe they'll do like Amtrak with the Sunset East and keep it on their route map with a dotted line and call it "Suspended".


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## jis (Oct 25, 2012)

MrFSS said:


> jis said:
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> > PRR 60 said:
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Big cracks in ice  We also flew somewhat low, like FL180 that day because of solar activity as I recall.

But of course just like Winnie-the-Pooh would expect there was a pole, or one could imagine one for the moment. 

Santa's Workshop is in Greenland I am told and the Danes get to collect taxes on it. The North Pole thing is false advertizing  Although the Finns insist that it is just north of Rovaniemi. 

I have just flown over north of Greenland (matter of fact did it last on the night of the 24th-25th Sept.) and couldn't see anything. It was dark and Santa was carrying out an air-raid drill so all llights were out.  At least North of Rovaniemi there is a proper little park to visit Santa's Workshop in.  I actually enjoyed visiting Rovaniemi during a shoulder season when the Sun was getting quite low in the sky. Rovaniemi is just 5km south of the Arctic Circle, and the Santa Park is actually north of the Arctic Circle as I recall. And what could be more fun than visiting the northernmost McDonalds in the world?

BTW, it is a very nice train ride from Helsinki to Rovaniemi via Tampere and Oulu. Rovaniemi is the end of electrified line from Helsinki. To go further north to Kamijarvi you take a diesel shuttle.


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## Devil's Advocate (Oct 25, 2012)

I'm curious enough to try one of these flights before it ends but even with six separate loyalty accounts nothing seems to add up for me points wise. SQ only accepts KF miles for premium seats involving North America and since that's all either of these flights have they're pretty much useless for redeeming points unless you've been accruing with SQ's KF. I might be able to sidetrack my spending a bit and rack up perhaps 50,000 or even 75,000 MR points from scratch and turn them into KF miles afterward, but that's still not enough for these flights. I'm almost kicking myself for dumping 20,000 SQ miles into my UA account just before these changes were leaked. Oh well, such is life.



jis said:


> I have taken three round trips on it, all before it went all Business Class. I am glad I got to see the North Pole before this flight went away.  They actually announced it on the flight!


Is there a trip report for any of these somewhere? In the past I've done my best to avoid ultra long haul flights because I don't enjoy being stuck in a seat for more than ten hours or so, but something about these flights reminds me of when I missed out on the Concorde before it was decommissioned. Although the the A345 is not nearly as sexy or exotic it still has the longest distance and longest duration revenue routes to its name.


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## jis (Oct 25, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > I have taken three round trips on it, all before it went all Business Class. I am glad I got to see the North Pole before this flight went away.  They actually announced it on the flight!
> ...


Nope, no trip reports.

Also beware that there is no guarantee that on a given day it will fly the Polar route. It all depends on how the jet stream blows. Of the three outbound trips to Singapore only one flew the Polar route, went straight north from New York and then cut across Siberia flying south over Irkutsk, and then a slight diversion to the east to avoid the Tibetan Plateau, over Chengdu and then down to Singapore. The other two took a more southerly route, one across Russia to China then south and the other along a classic route to India (essentially the same as what UA takes to Delhi - St. Johns - Bodo - Moscow - Ashgabad - Kandahar - Lahore - Lucknow - Kharagpur then over the Bay of Bengal to Singapore). It is all in the luck of the draw.

Hey it's just 18 hours and 45 mins, and they have a beautiful buffet laid out in the back lounge area. So no being stuck in seat, I usually spent considerable time in the lounge area chatting with random folks and chugging down some good drinks and getting fat on some good dessert  But I stopped doing these flights as soon as the nonstops to India from Newark started up.


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## George Harris (Oct 25, 2012)

For those of you in Texas, or other places in nearby countries: There is a Houston to Singapore flight with a stopover is Moscow. Taht should get you over the North Pole or close enought that you could not tell the difference. Don't know the schedule, but my oldest son did a round trip on that one sometime in the last year, forget exactly when. As to daylight for it: The question is not what time of day you go voer, but what time of year.


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## fairviewroad (Oct 25, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> In the past I've done my best to avoid ultra long haul flights because I don't enjoy being stuck in a seat for more than ten hours or so, but something about these flights reminds me of when I missed out on the Concorde before it was decommissioned. Although the the A345 is not nearly as sexy or exotic it still has the longest distance and longest duration revenue routes to its name.


IMO, the chances of such ultra long-haul flights like this returning are far, far greater than the chances of a Concorde-equivalent (i.e. commercial supersonic) aircraft returning. The former has more to do with fuel prices and global travel demand, whereas the latter has much more to do with logistics and start-up costs. It could be another 10 years or more before we see this specific route again, but I think there's a better-than-average chance of it someday returning. I mean, after this goes away the new winner will by SYD-DFW on Qantas, which isn't a polar route but still ranks fairly high on overall length. Whereas when the Concorde went away, there wasn't any experience remotely close to that to take its place, short of becoming an Air Force fighter pilot.


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## Devil's Advocate (Oct 25, 2012)

George Harris said:


> For those of you in Texas, or other places in nearby countries: There is a Houston to Singapore flight with a stopover is Moscow. Taht should get you over the North Pole or close enought that you could not tell the difference. Don't know the schedule, but my oldest son did a round trip on that one sometime in the last year, forget exactly when. As to daylight for it: The question is not what time of day you go voer, but what time of year.


I actually flew that exact route twice in the last few weeks. But it's a conventional B773 route that doesn't come close to pushing any envelopes and holds no records. I don't care much for "seeing" the north pole per se. It's more about experiencing what are likely to remain the longest of the long haul revenue flights for the foreseeable future. Not as rare or specialized as the Concorde of course, but still rare enough compared to the 742/3/4's and 772/3's that have plied long haul routes for decades now. The A388 and B788/9 aircraft are more specialized and unique on many levels, but they're also likely to be around a lot longer than the A345 will. In addition to the Concorde I've also managed to miss out on other unique aircraft like DC-10/MD-11's and L-1011's. An A345 may seem garden variety compared to those quirky specimens, but you take what you can get I suppose.



fairviewroad said:


> IMO, the chances of such ultra long-haul flights like this returning are far, far greater than the chances of a Concorde-equivalent (i.e. commercial supersonic) aircraft returning. The former has more to do with fuel prices and global travel demand, whereas the latter has much more to do with logistics and start-up costs. It could be another 10 years or more before we see this specific route again, but I think there's a better-than-average chance of it someday returning. I mean, after this goes away the new winner will by SYD-DFW on Qantas, which isn't a polar route but still ranks fairly high on overall length. Whereas when the Concorde went away, there wasn't any experience remotely close to that to take its place, short of becoming an Air Force fighter pilot.


Good points all around.


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## jis (Oct 25, 2012)

George Harris said:


> For those of you in Texas, or other places in nearby countries: There is a Houston to Singapore flight with a stopover is Moscow. Taht should get you over the North Pole or close enought that you could not tell the difference. Don't know the schedule, but my oldest son did a round trip on that one sometime in the last year, forget exactly when. As to daylight for it: The question is not what time of day you go voer, but what time of year.


Sorry IAH - SVO - SIN goes nowhere near the North Pole

Here is the great circle route:

Houston - Moscow - Singapore great circle route

If you want to fly over the North Pole just take the Newark or JFK to Hong Kong nonstop

BTW, the 777-200LR is more than capable of flying the EWR - SIN route and for much cheaper too, since its fuel consumption would be about 10 to 15% lower than on the A340-500. But the real problem is that at the current fuel prices such long segments simply do not pay.


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## Devil's Advocate (Oct 25, 2012)

jis said:


> Sorry IAH - SVO - SIN goes nowhere near the North Pole Here is the great circle route: Houston - Moscow - Singapore great circle route If you want to fly over the North Pole just take the Newark or JFK to Hong Kong nonstop


It's actually IAH-DME-SIN, but same difference so far as the North Pole is concerned.








jis said:


> BTW, the 777-200LR is more than capable of flying the EWR - SIN route and for much cheaper too, since its fuel consumption would be about 10 to 15% lower than on the A340-500. But the real problem is that at the current fuel prices such long segments simply do not pay.


The real money is in flying larger and larger numbers of people between the same two wings. Keeping passengers in the air nonstop on ultra long haul flights doesn't work with today's fuel prices. Which is bad news for ultra long haul flights going forward, regardless of incremental improvements possible with each new generation of aircraft. Looking into the future if the economy does well the cost of fuel will likely increase even further. On the other hand if the economy does poorly there probably won't be enough demand to sustain such routes. It's all lose-lose for ultra long haul flights in the near term.


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## Texan Eagle (Oct 28, 2012)

Alongwith EWR-SIN, SQ is also closing LAX-SIN route, also operated on A345. This leaves the SYD-DFW route operated on good ol' B747-400 as the "longest scheduled non-stop flight in the world by distance". However the 744 doesn't have the wings to do this jump westbound so the flight stops in Brisbane on the way to Sydney. The true both-ways longest flight will be Delta's ATL-JNB on B777. Unfortunately neither of them go anywhere close to the North Pole.

Your one of the best bets to fly over the North Pole might be Emirates' SFO-DXB or LAX-DXB flights, both of which have their Great Circle routes going very close to North Pole.

I have been on three ultra-longhaul flights so far- BOM-ATL on Delta (17h 15min), IAD-DOH (13h 35min) and DOH-IAD (14h 35min) on Qatar Airways, all three in Economy and have no desire to do it again unless forced to do because of fares. The Delta flight seemed to last forever, at one point it started feeling like I am never going to get out of that plane! Moreover, the flight attendants were all straight out of old age home and I felt a bit ashamed to call someone who looks my grandma's age to ask for water or snacks mid-flight  The Qatar flights were better because they offer one of the best legrooms and in-flight environment in the world today with some high-class entertainment options.


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