While the longest flights currently commercially available globally span multiple continents and take nearly 20 hours, airlines based in countries that are geographically large or have distant overseas territories can also have very long domestic routes.
Historically, the title of the longest flight in the world is held by Air Tahiti Nui. Taking just over 16 hours and crossing nearly 10,000 miles, the airline’s Flight 64 went from the French Polynesian capital of Papeete to Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport but was mostly a ceremonial route that ran only for a few months in 2020.
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In 2024, the longest domestic route crosses 5,809 miles and is run by both Air France (AFRAF) and Air Austral between Paris and the Réunion capital of St. Denis.
Related: An airline just launched one of the country’s longest domestic flights
Vacationers in a swimming pool at the Hyatt Regency Maui are seen.
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Delta Air Lines now has the longest flight in the U.S. (this is where it goes)
Beginning Nov. 21, Delta Air Lines (DAL) will launch a new route between Boston and Honolulu. That U.S. flight will become the country’s longest domestic route, at 5,095 miles.
That flight slightly exceeds the current longest nonstop route, which is Delta’s 4,983-mile flight from New York to Honolulu.
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Other domestic long-haul front-runners outside of Delta include United Airlines’ (UAL) flight between Newark and Honolulu and Alaska Airlines’ (ALK) JFK-Anchorage route.
While Delta’s new route to Honolulu was initially supposed to be run on a Boeing 767-300ER (BA) , the airline ended up switching the aircraft for an Airbus A330-300 (EADSF) with 204 economy, 24 Comfort+, 21 premium and 34 business class seats.
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Delta targets ‘well-positioned U.S. hubs to match increased demand’
While this route is only a few miles longer than the existing New York flight to Honolulu, it crosses a new milestone for the longest domestic flight both for Delta and any other U.S. airline.
As the Hawaiian islands are located off the West Coast in the Pacific Ocean, there is a lot of distance separating the off-mainland state from East Coast cities despite the fact that there is burgeoning tourist interest in getting there.
“Over the past decade, Delta has been dedicated to refining our domestic footprint, and this year we’re strengthening our roots within our well-positioned U.S. hubs to match increased demand,” Delta’s Senior Vice President of Network Planning Joe Esposito said in a statement when the route was first announced last February.
Slated to run four times a week, the flight will leave from Boston at 10:15 a.m. to arrive 11 hours and 15 minutes later at 4:31 p.m. local time and leave Honolulu at 5:20 for a nine-hour and 49-minute return route.
While Delta runs a range of flights not just to Honolulu but other Hawaiian islands such as Maui, Kauai and the Big Island from different West Coast cities, its routes from deeper into the mainland are limited to New York, Atlanta (the airline also runs a flight to Maui from the city), Detroit and, now, Boston.
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