The world’s longest flight is New York JFK to Singapore, at 9,537 miles operated by Singapore Airlines. Just behind it is Singapore’s Newark to Singapore flight at 9,534 miles. These take about 17 hours. Close behind are Auckland – Doha on Qatar Airways as well as several Qantas flights: Perth – London and Paris, Dallas – Melbourne, and New York JFK – Auckland (also flown by Air New Zealand).
But a new video proposes a new and interesting question: what’s the world’s longest domestic flight? And is it even in the United States? The test they propose is that it cannot involve passing through customers or immigration.
It turns out that the 5 longest domestic flights by this standard are actually all within the United States:
| Rank | Route | Distance | ||
| 1 | Boston – Honolulu (Delta) | 5,095 mi | ||
| 2 | New York JFK – Honolulu (Delta, Alaska) | 4,983 mi | ||
| 3 | Newark – Honolulu (United) | 4,962 mi | ||
| 4 | Washington Dulles – Honolulu (United) | 4,817 mi | ||
| 5 | Atlanta – Honolulu (Delta) | 4,502 mi |
All five of the longest U.S. domestic flights are to and from Honolulu.
Boston – Honolulu gets a little bit of an asterisk. Half as Interesting describes it as a “winter-only Delta Air Lines route.” In fact, no one currently operates the flight but Delta plans to resume service starting December 19, 2026.
- Delta did not fly it in winter 2025-2026.
- They last ran it November 21, 2024 – April 30, 2025.
- Hawaiian Airlines ended Boston – Honolulu service November 19, 2025.
The longest non-stop flight within Russia appears to be Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO) to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (PKC) at 4,203 miles. And the longest non-stop within China seems to be Shanghai Pudong (PVG) – Kashgar (KHG) in the Uyghur region of Xinjiang. That’s just 2,620 miles and it’s flown non-stop by China Eastern, China Southern, and Juneyao Airlines.
If we relaxed the border formalities issue, the longest flight between two airports in the same sovereign country is actually Paris Charles de Gaulle – Réunion at 5,847 miles. French non-European territories are non-Schengen and involves customs. Both Air France and Air Austral serve this route non-stop.
Early in Covid – on March 15, 2020 – Air Tahiti Nui flew Papeete, Tahiti to Paris non-stop and then operated three more flights that way. At 9,765 miles that was both the world’s longest domestic flight and the world’s longest flight. (New York JFK – Singapore is 9,534 miles.)
It doesn’t ‘count’ for this exercise because it involves passport control. Normally the flight stops at LAX. It also doesn’t currently operate that way. In fact, it could only do the trip non-stop Eastbound. The lightly-booked Boeing 787-9 couldn’t make it non-stop in the other direction.
I rather like relaxing the border formalities requirement, myself, and considering Papeete – Paris to be the longest domestic flight ever operated and Paris – Réunion as the current longest. But under these rules, Boston – Honolulu will win again come December. Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands deserve better U.S. flights, though, and contention in this important category!
(HT: Paul H.)
All thanks to Hawaii… the birthplace of our best President!
*casts fishing line*
I feel like Etihad’s US flights should fit somewhere in there with Preclearance..
Correct me if I’m wrong, but since 2018, the longest flight by any US carrier is United Airlines Houston (KIAH) to Sydney (YSSY)
Sam Denby (the youtuber behind this video) can do no wrong for he has given unto us Jet Lag: The Game. Season 18 premieres on Wednesday, June 10 on Nebula.
I envy folks who have not yet watched it and have 18 seasons of great content to consume. Likewise, season 21 of Taskmaster has been quite enjoyable (albeit not aviation themed).
@Peter — Adding to my list!
@1990 @Peter — It took me way too long to realize he did both Wendover and HAI.
How can there be a difference of 3 miles between JFK/Singapore and Newark/Singapore, but 21 miles difference between JFK/Honolulu and Newark/Honolulu?
There is passport control for Réunion but interestingly, no passport is required. All you need is an EU identity card. So in that sense you could call it domestic.
@Jersey Jim — Probably because to get to/from Hawaii, flight path goes southwest, and the distance is greater east-to-west between EWR-JFK; whereas, for NYC-SIN, flight path tends to go north-northeast over N. Atlantic, so it balances out to not much of a difference overall. (Just a theory.)
@Daniel — Kinda similar to U.S. territories, like U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, no passport, but there can be additional customs controls, unlike domestic flights between our 50-states.
A bit of trivia that you could win a beer over- Qantas flies KDFW (Dallas) to YSSY (Sydney Australia). United flies KIAH (Houston) to YSSY (Sydney). The Houston flight is a greater distance than the Dallas flight……
@Jersey Jim – The difference comes down to geometry. Singapore is nearly on the opposite side of the Earth from New York, so moving your starting point from Newark to JFK barely changes the great-circle distance, only about 3 miles. Honolulu is much closer and lies in a direction where Newark’s location west of JFK matters much more, so Newark ends up being almost the full 21 miles closer. In other words, when a destination is nearly antipodal, small differences between nearby airports largely disappear. When it’s closer, those differences are much more noticeable.
@Mike Hunt — So, my ‘theory’ was correct… (see above.)
Back sometime between 2010 & 2012 — I flew Delta Air Lines on a nonstop charter flight from Singapore to Atlanta (Eastbound) on a B777-200LR “World Liner” at 9,962 miles. Delta had (I think) some 4-5 R/T ATL-SIN-ATL nonstop charters for the same charter customer during that time period. For my flight, the plane was about 70% full. Flight attendant’s were exceptional and the entire flight’s atmosphere was very relaxed (with no one under age 30 onboard including NO screaming babies). And no one had too much to drink either!. The flight could not have been any better from boarding in SIN through deplaning in Atlanta .
@Daryl-Atlanta — Great memory, but since this was a charter flight, it isn’t comparable to a regular commercial route. That private buyout explains the unique passenger demographic, the low load factor, and the relaxed vibe you experienced. (@Tim Dunn, don’t get too excited by Daryl’s perfect testimonial; just an “anecdotal” outlier, right?)