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Friday, Nov 27, 2009
On the drawing board, as we already know, is London-Sydney. There's also the chance for a New York-Sydney route (8,646), though passenger volumes may be too low to support such a service. That two cities are technologically connectable means little to an airline unless there is an exploitable market to justify connecting them. London-Sydney is not the longest possible flight, but it may be the longest possible flight guaranteed to provide a steady supply of passengers. More formidable pairings are at least conceivable, marketplace depending. The most intriguing of these are São Paulo-Tokyo (9,984), Auckland-London (9,884) and Buenos Aires-Tokyo (9,910). Shattering the 10,000-nautical-mile frontier -- Buenos Aires-Seoul, anyone? -- remains, let's just say, a long shot.
Our ability to cover vast distances without refueling makes mincemeat of old notions of what constitutes short/medium/long-haul operations. Quaint seem the days when 707s would put down for fuel in Shannon, Ireland, or in Gander, Newfoundland, just to reach Europe from parts of North America and Pan Am's JFK-Tokyo flight sounded almost unbelievable. "Long haul" once meant New York-Paris. There are no official definitions, but I'll give you an "Ask the Pilot" parsing of en route tedium:
1. Minihaul: Any flight up to two hours' duration. Examples: Chicago-Cleveland, Orlando-Atlanta, Madrid-Barcelona
2. Short haul: Any flight between two and five hours' duration. Examples: New York-Miami, Denver-Boston, Tokyo-Seoul
3. Medium haul: Any flight between five and nine hours' duration. Examples: New York-London, Tokyo-Bangkok, London-Cairo
4. Long haul: Any flight between nine and 14 hours' duration. Examples: New York-Tokyo, London-Johannesburg, Paris-Hong Kong
5. Ultra-long haul, aka megahaul: Any flight over 14 hours' duration. Examples: New York-Singapore, New York-Hong Kong, New York-Boston (during weather delays).
If you're seated in category 1, chances are your ears are ringing and your knees are getting bruised. That's because you're wedged into a turboprop or a regional jet. If you're seated in categories 4 or 5, pray that you're in first or business class aboard a non-U.S. carrier.
To me, nothing better personifies the beauty of air travel than the advancement of long-range flying -- the idea, previously inconceivable, that distant, exotic continents are but a single, simple journey away. And for you, the consumer? A look on Travelocity shows that a super-saver from Singapore Airlines, on the longest flight in the world, is selling for as little as $815 round trip. To put it another way, that's about five cents a mile.
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Missed Approaches
Dear Patrick Smith: Marc Blitzstein was hardly a "little known" composer. He was a major figure in musical and theater circles in the 1940s and 1950s. He was the person who brought the English translation of "The Threepenny Opera" to the U.S. in 1954, which starred Lotte Lenya, for example. He also worked with Orson Welles and John Houseman on "Cradle Will Rock," which was famous for being prevented from opening by the NYPD in 1937 and gave birth to Welles' Mercury Theatre.
-- Mike Friedman
Re: MGM Grand Air foiled by recession?
Dear Patrick Smith: You state "eventually MGM Grand Air fell victim to the mid-'90s recession." Actually, except for the recession of 1991, the '90s saw consistent economic growth. The lowest rate of real GDP growth during the Clinton administration was 2.5 percent in 1995. Yes, that was slower than the previous year's 4 percent growth, but a recession is when GDP actually declines, such as 1991. According to Wikipedia, MGM Grand Air was unprofitable by 1994, a year of healthy economic growth.
-- Michael Hagmeier
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