In aviation, the flight length refers to the distance of a flight. Commercial flights are often categorized into long-, medium- or short-haul by airline, commercial airlines based on flight length, although there is no international standard definition and many airlines use air time or geographic boundaries instead. Route category lengths tend to define short-haul routes as being shorter than , long-haul as being longer than , and medium-haul as being in-between. The related term flight duration is defined as to the amount of time a single flight (segment) is scheduled to take from pushing back at the departure gate to arriving at its destination gate. It is formally defined by International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) as "The total time from the moment an aeroplane first moves for the purpose of taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight" also referred to colloquially as "chocks to chocks" time. Flight duration is formally measured in hours & minutes as it is irrespective of geographic distance traveled. A route's flight duration can be affected by many things such as anticipated routings, weather, traffic, or taxiing times. Scheduled durations for the same route and airline can also vary on what aircraft is used. A flight's duration can also be described using the aviation term of "Flight Haul Type", such as "Short Haul" or "Long Haul" that have multiple different definitions depending on originating sources. See the below table for some more prominent examples:

Route category definitions

Flight Haul Type terms are often used to describe flight length by aviation entities such as airlines, airports, and government authorities. The definitions vary as they are subjective for that entities' purposes and provide a specific message to their customers how they view a flight as being long or short. Some examples include:

Asia & Australia

* Hong Kong International Airport considers destinations in North and South Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Southwest Pacific and the Indian Subcontinent long-haul and all others are short-haul. * Japan Air Lines defines routes to Europe and North America as long-haul and all other flights as short-haul. * Qatar Airways defines all flights from Qatar to the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand as Ultra-long-haul, and all other flights as medium or long-haul. * Virgin Australia defines domestic flights as within Australia, short-haul as those to South East Asia/Pacific and long-haul as those to Abu Dhabi or Los Angeles.

Europe

* The European Union defines any passenger flight between city pairs separated by a great circle distance less than 1,500km to be short-haul, between 1,500 and 3,500km as medium-haul, and all flights greater than 3,500km to be long-haul routes. * Eurocontrol defines "very short-haul" flights as being less than 500km, short-haul flights being between 500 to 1,500 km, medium-haul flights being between , and long-haul flights as longer than that. * The Association of European Airlines defined Long-haul as flights to Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Australasia and medium-haul as flights to North Africa and Middle East. * The now defunct airline Air Berlin defined short- and medium-haul as flights to Europe/North Africa and long-haul as those to the rest of the world. * Air France defines short-haul as domestic, medium-haul as within Europe/North Africa and long haul as the rest of the world.

North America

* American Airlines defines short-/medium-haul flights as being less than and long-haul as either being more than or being the New York–Los Angeles and New York–San Francisco routes. * United Airlines defines short-haul flights as being less than and long-haul flights as being greater than .

Aircraft category definitions

Flight Haul Type terms are sometimes used when referring to commercial aircraft. Some commercial carriers choose to refer to their aircraft using flight haul type terms, for example: * Delta Air Lines refers to its Boeing 717, MD-88 and MD-90 as short-haul domestic aircraft; Boeing 757, Boeing 737, Airbus A319 and A321 as long-haul domestic; and its transoceanic Boeing 757, 767 (aircraft), 767, Boeing 777, 777 and Airbus A330 as long-haul. * Lufthansa classifies its Lufthansa#Fleet, fleet as: long-haul for wide-body aircraft such as the Airbus A330/Airbus A340, Airbus A350, Airbus A380, and Boeing 747; medium-haul for narrow-body aircraft like the Airbus A320 and 737 (aircraft), 737 families; and short-haul for regional jets like the Embraer E-Jets and the Bombardier CRJ-900. * TUI Airways refers to their Boeing 737 as a short and mid-haul airliner and the Boeing 767 and 787 (aircraft), 787 as long haul. While they are capable of flying further, long-haul capable wide-bodies are often used on shorter trips. In 2017 - 40% of A350 routes were shorter than , 50% of A380 flights fell within , 70% of 777-200ER routes were shorter than , 80% of 787-9s routes were shorter than , 70% of 777-200LRs flights were shorter than .

Superlative flights

Shortest commercial flight

The Westray to Papa Westray flight in Orkney, operated by Loganair, is the shortest commercial flight in the world over 2.8 km (1.7 mi) in two minutes scheduled flight time including taxiing.

Longest commercial flight

The world's longest ever commercial flight was Air Tahiti Nui Flight TN64 in early 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impossibility of transit in the USA through Los Angeles International Airport, Air Tahiti Nui scheduled and operated in March and April 2020 Flight TN64 as a non-stop flight between Papeete and Paris Charles de Gaulle, using a Boeing 787-9 and covering 15,715 km (9,765 mi; 8,485 nmi). From November 9, 2020, Singapore Airlines SQ 23/24 is the world's longest active commercial flight between Changi Airport, Singapore and John F. Kennedy International Airport, JFK Airport New York City, New York City, USA. covering in around 18 hours 40min and operated by an Airbus A350 XWB#A350-900ULR, Airbus A350-900ULR.

Distinctions

Absolute distance versus flight length

The absolute distance between two points is the great-circle distance, which is always the shortest geographical route. In the example (right), the aircraft travelling westward from North America to Japan is following a great-circle route extending northward towards the Arctic region. The apparent curve of the route is a result of distortion when plotted onto a conventional map projection and makes the route appear to be longer than it really is. Stretching a string between North America and Japan on a globe will demonstrate why this really is the shortest route despite appearances. The actual flight length is the length of the track flown across the ground in practice, which is usually longer than the ideal great-circle and is influenced by a number of factors such as the need to avoid bad weather, wind direction and speed, fuel economy, navigational restrictions and other requirements. In the example, easterly flights from Japan to North America are shown taking a longer, more southerly, route than the shorter great-circle; this is to take advantage of the favourable jet stream, a fast, high-altitude tail-wind, that assists the aircraft along its ground track saving more time and fuel than the geographically shortest route.

Air time versus schedule times

Air time is the elapsed time that the aircraft is airborne, regardless of what time-zone the flight began and ended in. Schedule time is the difference between the scheduled local time at the origin and the scheduled local time at the destination and usually differs from the actual time in the air as it is affected by the local time zones. Local clock time flying westward, or "chasing the sun", is slowed, while local clock time flying eastbound is sped up. However, flights over the International Date Line located at approximately 180^o E in the Pacific will subtract 24 hours from the schedule time going eastwards and add 24 hours going westwards. For example, the eastward flight shown in the example from Japan to North America will have a scheduled time of arrival earlier than the departure time, while from North America to Japan the flight will take a whole day longer by local time; the actual flying time in both cases being the same or similar.

Flight Length versus Flight Duration example

Even with the same length, a route's flight duration can be affected by anticipated routings, seasonal weather, traffic, taxiing time, or equipment capabilities as seen in this example: On the Luxembourg to Bucharest route operated by LuxAir, the scheduled flight length remains constant while the flight duration varies depending on aircraft used: * On Thursday mornings, LuxAir operates a DHC-8 Turboprop with a scheduled duration of approximately 3 hours. * While on Saturday mornings, LuxAir operates a Embraer 190 Jet Airliner, which reduces the scheduled duration of the flight down to approximately 2 hours 20 minutes.

References

External links

The Great Circle Mapper
Displays Great Circle flight routes on a Map And calculates distance and duration
Flight-time and -distance calculator

Air Miles Calculator

Flight Duration Calculator

Flight Distance Calculator
Flight routes duration and Great Circle Mapper {{DEFAULTSORT:Flight Length Civil aviation