China Eastern Airlines plans to operate the world's longest direct passenger flight with 29 hour trip starting this year

China Eastern Airlines has announced its plans to operate the world’s longest flight for passengers, as 29-hour trips to Argentina are scheduled to take off in December.

Very few people get to travel to every continent.

This new journey is making it possible for Chinese passengers to finally make the trip out to South America, with a day-long flight from Shanghai to Buenos Aires scheduled to debut this year.

It will become a landmark moment as the world’s longest flight for passengers, although some people don’t see the appeal.

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China Eastern Airlines set to make the world’s longest flight for passengers

As airlines continue to make their planes better-equipped for long-haul flights, China Eastern has taken the risk to launch the world’s longest flight.

The title is currently held by Singapore Airlines, whose direct journey to New York (JFK) clocks in at just shy of 19 hours.

However, this new journey is set to add another ten hours to that time, as the return trip from Buenos Aires is set at 29 hours (outbound is 26 hours).

The flight is technically a one-stop, with the journey going from Shanghai, China, to Auckland, New Zealand, where it sits for two hours to refuel and then jets off again to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In order to keep the ‘world’s longest flight’ time, passengers are not permitted to leave the plane when it lands in Auckland.

The reason behind this has not been stated, but it’s likely to do with the costs of finding a disembarkment bay to board and unboard in an hour, rather than just pulling up to a fuel pump and hitting the air again.

One heck of a back-ache

Singapore Airlines is renowned for its long-haul flights from American airports like JFK, Newark, and LA, but the company has put extensive work into making the best first-class cabins out there.

However, nearly doubling that flight time to 29 hours, especially for economy passengers, sounds like a rough ordeal.

Many comments on Reddit agree.

“Keeping the passenger on [the] plane for 2.5hrs just so they could claim the title is silly,” one person wrote.

Another added, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

This is one huge stint for the pilots, who will have to stay switched on for over a day each time the flight takes off.

With two of these journeys set every week, the China Eastern Airlines crew is in for quite the shock to the system.

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