The longest scheduled passenger flight in the world links Singapore with New York without a stop. How many kilometres is the great-circle distance between the two airports?
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Answer
About 15,000 km
The flight lasts around 18 hours, and the aircraft used for it has no economy class cabin at all.
How to estimate it
Singapore is at 104 degrees east and New York at 74 degrees west, almost exactly opposite sides of the globe, so the shortest route passes near the North Pole. From Singapore, at 1 degree north, to the pole is 89 degrees; from the pole down to New York, at 41 degrees north, is 49. 89 + 49 = 138 degrees, and one degree is 111 km: 15,300 km. The actual distance is about 15,000 km.
Source: Singapore Airlines; Guinness World Records
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