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Air India Breaks World Record For World’s Longest Non-Stop Flight And Does It In Record Time

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Treading on unconventional and unseen routes is not really “the thing” for many commercial aeroplanes, mainly because they want to keep it simple and safe. But an Indian aeroplane has defied all odds as they flew a world record distance in shortest ever time using an untraditional path.

Air India’s flight AI173 covered the mammoth 15,300 km distance from New Delhi to San Francisco using the trans-Pacific route rather than the usual Atlantic route. Although the Pacific route is an additional 1,400 km longer in length, the non-stop flight completed the journey in a world record timing of 14 hours and 30 minutes.

The trans-Pacific route theoretically should consume more fuel due to the extra distance, but flying eastwards meant flying with the flow of the wind rather than against it, helping it reach the destination earlier. In the Atlantic route, the aeroplanes have to face the wind head-on, meaning it consumes more time and fuel to reach the same destination.

Captain on this historic flight, Rajneesh Sharma revealed that this change in the route has saved around 13 tonnes of fuel, which is an amazing feat in itself. Before this record, the world’s longest non-stop flight was conducted by Emirates on the Dubai-Auckland route comprising of 14,200 km in length and 16-and-a-half hours in duration. Captain Sharma also added after this success; Air India will fly more planes on this route over the next six months.
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