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Singapore Airlines Reveals Start Date for the New Longest Flight in the World

May 30, 2018
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3 min read
Singapore A350 Delivery Flight
Singapore Airlines Reveals Start Date for the New Longest Flight in the World
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We've known for several years now that Singapore Airlines was going to restart nonstop flights between the New York area and Singapore (SIN), but we just didn't know when that was going to happen. Now, however, we have a date that we can circle in our calendars — the airline said on Wednesday morning that it'll resume its nonstop flights between SIN and Newark (EWR) on October 11, 2018, with the inaugural EWR-SIN leg the next day, October 12.

The flights will operate on a thrice-weekly basis initially, and then will move to daily service about a week later (October 19) once another Airbus A350-900ULR enters service for the airline. The carrier also has plans to launch nonstop service between SIN and Los Angeles (LAX) with this new aircraft, but it hasn't released any details of that route yet.

Speaking of the -900ULR, Singapore is the launch customer of the aircraft, and it's (thankfully) chosen a special, no-economy cabin configuration for the seven examples it has on order with Airbus. It'll have just 161 seats in total — 67 of them in business class and 94 in premium economy. Before Singapore suspended this route in 2013, it flew it with specially configured Airbus A340-500s that featured only 100 business-class seats.

Unfortunately, the business-class product on Singapore's A350 is strange ... to say the least. It's certainly not as good as the carrier's all-new biz product on its Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners, and it may not be the most comfortable for an almost 19-hour flight, especially considering that there's no option to recline the seat all the way into bed mode yourself — a flight attendant is required to convert the seat into a bed for you when you want to take a snooze.

When it relaunches, the flight will become the longest in the world, covering a distance of just over 9,500 miles — that means just under 19 hours of flying time. Tickets are set to go on sale tomorrow (May 31), and the flight will operate according to the following schedule:

  • between October 11 and October 27, 2018:
    • SQ22 Singapore (SIN) 11:35pm Departure ⇒ Newark (EWR) 6:00am (+1) Arrival
    • SQ21 Newark (EWR) 10:45am Departure ⇒ Singapore (SIN) 5:30pm (+1) Arrival
  • between October 28, 2018 and March 30, 2019:
    • SQ22 Singapore (SIN) 12:40am Departure ⇒ Newark (EWR) 5:30am Arrival
    • SQ21 Newark (EWR) 9:45am Departure ⇒ Singapore (SIN) 5:15pm (+1) Arrival

Cash prices for the new world's longest flight won't likely come cheap, but luckily you'll be able to book with Singapore's KrisFlyer program. The mileage rates should mirror what you'd pay on the airline's flights between SIN and New York (JFK) that operate via Frankfurt (FRA):

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  • Premium economy: 70,000 miles one-way
  • Business class (saver): 92,000 miles one-way
  • Business class (standard): 135,000 miles one-way

Those rates aren't exactly cheap, and saver availability will likely be very hard to come by — but if you do happen to find one, you can transfer miles from major currencies like American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou and Starwood Preferred Guest.

In addition to the upcoming nonstop SIN-EWR flight, the airline will maintain its daily SIN-JFK via FRA service, which it operates with its A380 aircraft.

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