Air New Zealand is now offering direct flights between Auckland and New York City, one of the longest nonstop flights in the world.
The flagship airline of New Zealand intended to begin the route, which shuttles between Auckland and JFK International Airport, in 2020, but the pandemic and New Zealand’s extremely cautious border restrictions delayed the launch. Two years later, Air New Zealand has finally begun selling those tickets, with a first flight scheduled for September 2022.
“I think there’s a bunch of people on the east coast of America who are going to love the opportunity to come here direct,” said Greg Foren, chief executive of Air New Zealand. He told the Associated Press that he believes inbound demand will exceed outbound, especially in the first few months.
“You’ve gone through a pretty tough couple of years in the U.S. and here’s a brand new destination,” Foren said. “You turn up at JFK, you catch the plane at 9 o’clock at night and you land at 8 o’clock in the morning in New Zealand.”
The time difference makes it an overnight flight, but the southbound flight will actually be 17.5 hours, and cover 8,800 miles. New York City and New Zealand are not far from being perfectly opposite each other – NYC’s true antipodal city is Augusta, Australia, so the flight comes close to encircling half the globe. Due to prevailing winds, the northbound flight only takes 16 hours.
While long flights have a reputation for health risks like deep vein thrombosis, Foren says there’s no evidence that flights of 16 or 17 hours are more risky than flights of 4-8, and that the airline is looking into ‘lots of ways’ to improve the flying experience. Singapore Airlines, which currently offers the longest regularly scheduled direct flights, 19 hours from Singapore to NYC, has had only two fatal DVT events in 17 years.
Tickets start at about $1,400 round-trip, and would be aboard the Boeing 787-09 Dreamliner.
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