Long Flights

It’s frightening when “non-stop” means 18 long long hours and 10,000 miles in the sky. When Singapore Airlines recently introduced the world’s longest flight from NYC to Singapore and we’re talking really long. The flight requires specially built planes and specially trained crews, too. Ten of them, to be exact; each of these long-haul flights carries four flight crews and six cabin crews to serve passengers on the journey. The plane is an Airbus A340-500, and it is very much something special in the air. While American Airlines is busy cramming more seats into the cabin, SIA has been busy taking them out. The A340-500 was intended to hold 313 passengers in three classes, but SIA has only installed 181 seats in two sections: Raffles Business Class and Executive Economy. The result is more room for economy passengers than any other flight: 36.6 inches of seat pitch for “leg room” that actually means room for your legs and feet.