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Two years ago, I got to experience the world’s longest flight, Singapore Airlines’ route between Singapore and New York. It was a big item to cross off my AvGeek to-do list and the experience itself was a blast. Since then I’ve been wondering how I could ever top that flight. In the end, there was only one way: flying the route in the opposite direction (which has a longer average time aloft) and in more style. After biding my time for a while and snagging a lucky booking, I got the chance.
When I flew from Singapore to NYC in 2023, a stiff tailwind helped us make great time: under 17 hours aloft. Flying the return route to Singapore would be a full two hours longer. Even for an AvGeek, the idea of over 19 hours onboard a single flight was intimidating. I was honestly worried that partway through this marathon of a flight, the magic would wear off and I’d get bored.
Well, I was completely wrong about that. It was a LONG flight to be sure. But between the comfy seat, beautiful views, wide array of entertainment options, and signature Singapore service, it was a blast from start to finish. I also got to learn about the unique features that make these ultra-long-haul services tolerable (and even fun!) for passengers onboard.
Read on for the full scoop on this one-of-a-kind route. We hope the walkthrough will help you decide whether a flight this long is worth your time.
Before I begin, shout out to a special story from the AirlineReporter archives. Back in 2013 David Parker Brown flew the previous iteration of the Singapore-NYC route, operated at that time by an Airbus A340-500. If you’re looking for a historical comparison (or maybe just for a bit of AvGeek nostalgia) check out that classic story.
On the ground at New York JFK
Singapore Airlines currently operates out of Terminal 4 at JFK. The airline doesn’t operate its own lounge here. Biz class and other qualifying passengers could use the PrimeClass contract lounge, the Air India Lounge, or request a $50 meal voucher. There’s also an AMEX Centurion Lounge and Chase Sapphire Lounge in the same terminal for anyone with the right credit card perks.
For long-haul flights, I’m used to boarding around an hour before departure time. But because Singapore’s A350-900ULRs are in a low-density configuration, boarding started only 30 minutes pre-departure. People still lined up early to board, which was funny since they were about to be confined to the cabin for almost a full day.
From the outside, the aircraft looked like a regular A350, but on the inside she was a totally different animal. We’ll tell you why.
A unique subfleet
Singapore operates a super-specialized subfleet of just nine A350-900ULRs. The last three letters stand for ultra-long range. With its modified fuel system the ULR offers an insane range of up to 9,700 nautical miles and capability to handle 20 uninterrupted hours of flight.
Another key difference between Singapore’s ULRs and its non-ULR counterparts is the cabin layout. Singapore didn’t even bother including an economy class cabin on its ULRs. That was to reduce weight, but also because most people wouldn’t want to spend 18+ hours in an economy seat. There are two massive business class cabins occupying the front two-thirds of the plane, offering an impressive 67 total seats. In the rear third of the plane there’s a premium economy cabin with 94 seats in a 2-4-2 configuration. In total, the plane carries just 161 passengers, compared with 253-303 passengers on the various configurations of Singapore’s non-ULR A350-900s.
Meet the seat
After stepping onboard, I headed into the forward business class cabin and took stock of my home for the next 20 hours. The seat is the same as on Singapore’s standard A350s. It’s an eye-catching design, with lots of purple and golden accents.
The cabin layout is 1-2-1 across. Seats in the middle have a sliding privacy divider between them.
I had picked a window seat on the left side.
The seat itself was impressively wide. The side of the seat enclosure blocked one of my windows, but I had a good view through the other one.
Singapore doesn’t offer a suite style product in business class (yet) but the dividers between seats still do offer some privacy.
The console beside the seat came stocked with an amenity kit, menu, and a few other goodies.
Beside each headrest was a reading light, power outlet, and small storage area.
At the front of each seat compartment there was a large screen, a small ledge for holding a drink, and another small storage area with a door.
As I got settled in the purser came by to introduce himself. I was then offered a choice of drinks, though the pre-departure service was limited to water and juice.
It was a late-night departure. The NYC area was sparkling at night and my eyes stayed glued to the window for the entire climb along the length of Long Island.
On a side note, I had expected the world’s longest flight to have a crazy long takeoff roll. But we lifted off barely halfway into the 12,079-foot runway 22R – and with only a nine-knot headwind. Pretty good performance for a plane presumably tanked up to the brim with fuel.
Service gets started
After takeoff the crew came around with nuts and a drink to tide us over while they prepped the dinner service.
This was the menu for the initial meal:
Singapore’s Book the Cook option lets you pre-select an entree prior to the flight.
Here’s a look at the wine list for the flight:
And here are some of the other drinks they offered:
Singapore runs some cool catering partnerships for its long-haul flights. One is with AeroFarms, an indoor vertical farming company. The salad we started with featured their greens.
The sea bass entree was perfect.
And a mango + passion fruit berry cremeux rounded out a great meal.
As usual, the Singapore Airlines flight attendants were polished, proactive, and made the hard work look easy.
Settling in for the LONG haul
Singapore does inflight amenities a bit differently than most other airlines do. Instead of a heavily stocked amenity kit for each passenger, they offer individual items in the lavatories.
The business class cabin had four washrooms. Four lavs between 67 passengers is a pretty tight ratio. There were times close to mealtimes and landing where there was at least a short line for them.
For this flight they did also offer a light amenity kit at each seat, with just a few items, along with some socks + slippers + eye masks.
Singapore’s A350 seats go fully flat, but not in the usual way. Instead of the seat flattening out into a bed under a passenger’s control, the entire seat flips forward to open up the bed. That process requires a flight attendant’s involvement.
It’s a polarizing design choice. On one hand, you don’t have as much flexibility to enter and exit fully-flat mode. On the other hand, Singapore’s design offers a firm supportive material for seat mode but a separate softer bed surface in sleep mode. I definitely appreciated the difference.
In this seat design the footwell in bed mode is off to the side and a bit cramped, though at torso level the bed is way wider than average.
Thanks to the A350’s cabin design, and also because I was sitting in the forward-most cabin, it was an unusually quiet ride. Phone sound meters may not be the most accurate, but I was impressed that mine gauged the ambient noise level at 77 decibels. That’s significantly quieter than many other aircraft types.
Between the soft surface, excellent bedding, and quiet ride, I got some AMAZING sleep on this flight.
Normally I try to sleep the bare minimum required when I’m on a treat-myself fancy flight. But with a nearly 19-hour flight time I didn’t skimp on sleep. I woke up as we were crossing into Turkey. It was ten full hours after takeoff … and we were barely halfway through the flight. Crazy!
While I was sleeping the sun had come up outside.
Just as I was wondering what to do with all the remaining flight time, the crew started a midflight meal service.
I’ll admit the menu choice felt a bit odd. It was a meal being served at around 9AM in New York time. I would have thought most passengers would be craving breakfast. But the dishes were more like a second dinner. Then again, it’s not fair to be too Western-centric in my assumptions about meals since US-style eggy and sugary breakfasts aren’t the norm in most places.
What mattered most was that it was another very tasty meal. And also easy on the eyes, with great presentation and plating. My main dish (Moroccan grilled lamb chops) was another culinary partnership, this time with California’s Golden Door spa and wellness retreat.
I took my time eating (I mean, what else was I going to do?) and by the time dessert rolled around the sun was starting to set. That marked the second nighttime I experienced during this flight. Because of the flight length and the time zone difference, this flight lands two (!!) days after it takes off.
Passing the time
Having eaten and slept to my heart’s content, I turned some attention to the entertainment system. The screen size was impressive. Weirdly, it wasn’t a touch screen. But you could at least connect your phone to the system to use it as a remote, in addition to the wired physical remote next to the seat.
The headphones they offered were pretty good, though the quiet cabin also meant there was less background nose to block in general.
There was unlimited complimentary Wi-Fi, which was a major plus.
The speeds were reasonably good for inflight internet, though the coverage cut out a few times over the course of the long route.
Overall, Singapore offers a great entertainment system and content library. There were only two IFE downsides. One was that there were a lot of ads. The other was that there weren’t any exterior camera views. On the AvGeek bright side, the moving map was excellent: both high-res and interactive. Looking at the map mid-flight and noticing all the countries we’d flown over, it really sank in how insanely long this flight was.
Singapore’s A350s offer some of the most tasteful cabin lighting I’ve ever seen. The seat itself had multiple lights you could control to get exactly the vibe you wanted.
Unsurprisingly, the crew kept the cabin dark for most of the flight to allow people to sleep as much as they wanted.
Unfortunately, that meant that I couldn’t really look out of the window much — at least not without flooding the cabin with a ton of light and waking people up.
It wasn’t a problem though, because I had plenty of content on the IFE system to stay entertained. I also passed the time with some coffee and a pre-arrival bowl of noodles.
For the second half of the flight the crew members mostly kept to the galleys but were responsive when I needed them.
Even the world’s longest flight eventually ends
It was almost a surprise when the crew announced we were about to start our descent. I took advantage of the heads-up-display option on the inflight map as we made our approach.
We got a look at the usual expanse of waiting ships during the final descent into Changi.
Here’s a window-seat view of the descent and landing:
And with that, our marathon of a flight came to an end.
Sizing up the world’s longest flight
To start, this flight would have been worth it for the novelty factor alone. I mean seriously, just take a look at how much ground we covered:
So from an AvGeek perspective this flight is well worth it. But if you’re weighing whether to drop some serious cash/miles/points on this flight you probably care about more than just the route length. The passenger experience matters. So how does Singapore objectively fare there? Well, it’s a tall order to keep passengers happy on a flight this long. But I have to say Singapore Airlines did an amazing job with this ultra-long-haul service.
The positives:
– Singapore is known for offering some of the best service in the sky. My flight’s crew was on their A-game and they were the single most positive part of the experience.
– In terms of the basic dimensions the seat is generously spacious.
– The inflight dining was exceptional, both in terms of flavor and presentation. The unique supplier partnerships (like AeroFarms for the salads or the Golden Door entree) were a fun twist. Singapore’s excellent wine and coffee list deserve particular praise.
– The IFE screen was massive, and the library of content was excellent.
– The A350 is a great platform for this ultra-long-haul service, compared with the noisier fuel-guzzling A340-500 that used to operate the NYC-SIN route. The relatively quiet cabin volume, calming lighting, and improved humidity and pressurization are especially helpful on ultra-long-haul flights.
If I had to point to a few small downsides:
– Singapore’s long-haul biz class seats are falling further and further behind the cutting edge. At least the airline is aware of this, and recently they dropped hints about a major upcoming seat redesign. With their next generation of seats, I wouldn’t be surprised if Singapore joints the suite elite.
– Not having the ability to take the seat between upright and fully-flat modes was awkward.
– As good as the food was, it was strange to not have a breakfast option for a full-day flight.
– The low lavatory-to-passenger ratio meant occasionally needing to wait. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.
– What does an AvGeek have to do to get external camera views around here??
As always, if any of you have tried this flight out yourself (or aspire to!) and have thoughts, share them in the comments section below.
Logistical note: Singapore has multiple daily flights into and out of the NYC area. Because of all of that capacity there are sometimes great deals on their ultra-long-haul flights with miles or cash. I booked this flight with miles.
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