World's 'Longest' Flight Will Clock in at 29 Hours

If you thought a 10-hour flight was marathon material, China Eastern Airlines is about to up the ante. Starting Dec. 4, the carrier will launch a new route connecting Shanghai's Pudong International Airport to Buenos Aires' Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Argentina, by way of a two-hour stopover in Auckland, New Zealand, per Time Out.

• Total journey: 29 hours and a whopping 12,500 miles, or about half the circumference of our spinning blue planet.

• More details: The new service, flying under the banners MU745 and MU746, will operate twice a week using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Tickets come at a premium: Economy seats will set you back $1,525 to around $2,255, while business-class fares hover close to $5,000.
• The catch: There's a bit of a technicality, per CNN. The flights will touch down in Auckland (and no, you likely won't be able to leave the plane) and thus aren't considered "nonstop." Singapore Airlines currently holds the record for longest nonstop commercial flight, with an 18-hour-plus route from Singapore's Changi Airport to New York's JFK.
• New records? Qantas' much-hyped "Project Sunrise"—set to launch in 2026—has promised its own "world's longest flight" to beat Singapore's, with direct Sydney-to-New York and Sydney-to-London flights clocking in at just over 19 hours. China Eastern's offering, meanwhile, claims a different kind of "world's longest flight"—the longest by time and distance on a single-ticket itinerary.