After 16 hours and 23 minutes, a Qatar Airways plane touched down in Auckland, New Zealand, Monday, marking the new longest flight in the world.
The journey from Doha, Qatar, was 14,535 kilometers, eclipsing the previous longest flight from Dubai to Auckland on Emirates Airline, which has a reported flight time of 17 hours and 15 minutes.
On board the Boeing 777-200LR was the airline’s CEO Akbar Al Baker, who called the flight “an important milestone.”
For the extreme flight, there were four pilots and 15 cabin crew. Over the course of the flight, cabin crew served 1,100 cups of tea and coffee, 2,000 cold drinks and 1,036 meals.
As is the custom with inaugural flights, the plane was greeted in Auckland with water cannons.
The record may fall in March of 2018, when the Australian airline, Qantas, will start service between Perth and London. Although the distance is just a bit shorter when measured on the surface of the earth — 14,498 kilometers — the flying time will be longer.
That could even be eclipsed if Singapore Airlines restores service between Singapore and New York, a 15,323-kilometer flight.
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