Singapore Airlines is beefing up its service to U.S. cities, with its brand-new Airbus A350 ultra long range variant making more connections and taking back the ‘longest scheduled flight’ title.
The A350ULR, which Airbus created specifically for Singapore, will play a key role in the airline’s planned expansion in U.S. service, which will increase flights by 43% by next September over last September.
Among the routes that will use the fewer-passenger-more-fuel plane are new service to Seattle starting next September; to Los Angeles this week and to Newark/New York, as well as San Francisco. The Los Angeles and Newark flights restore routes cancelled in 2013 because they couldn’t operate profitably with the four-engine A340s the airline was using.
The Singapore to Newark flight, at 9,535 miles, is the current longest scheduled flight, although that may change as Qantas extends its long-range flights with the A350’s competitor, a long-range version of the 787.
Singapore is heavily committed to the A350, with 60 A350-900s and 11 A350 ULRs ordered. It’s already received 21 of the -900s and four ULRs.
