It will not surprise you that American, Delta, and United are the world’s three largest airlines by flights. This is, of course, directly based on their enormous fleet sizes and reliance on US domestic service, comfortably still the world’s number one aviation market. Between August and December 2024, the three airlines operate about one in seven of the world’s services. That’s a phenomenal proportion.The trio’s longest non-stop routes
Using Cirium data to examine American, Delta, and United’s entire August-December network shows that the following are the operators’ 10 longest routes. United took seven of the 10 spots, including the top two positions. This is unsurprising: it is comfortably the US’s leading long-haul carrier to Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the Middle East.Have the airlines had longer flights?
While Dallas/Forth Worth-Brisbane is American’s longest-ever non-stop service, Delta and United have operated longer services than their current number one. That’s based on examining all their routes in the past 20 years.Delta: Atlanta-Mumbai; served in 2008 and 2009 on the 777-200LR (the subfleet was retired in 2020). At 7,395 nautical miles (13,695 km), it was only 0.85% longer than Atlanta-Johannesburg on a Great Circle basis.
United: Los Angeles-Singapore; served in 2017 and 2018 on the 787-9. Due to the route cut, United increased San Francisco-Singapore flights to double daily, a frequency that remains today. At 7,621 nautical miles (14,114 km), Los Angeles-Singapore was 2% longer than Houston-Sydney.While American has not exceeded its longest service before, Dallas/Fort Worth-Hong Kong was close.
The 7,058 nautical mile (13,072 km) route was flown between 2014 and 2020, since which the oneworld airport pair has been unserved.We hope you like the items we recommend and discuss! Simple Flying has affiliate and sponsored partnerships, so we receive a share of the revenue from some of your purchases. This won’t affect the price you pay and helps us offer the best product recommendations.