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To be fair, I think Boston to San Francisco, which I believe is the longest flight within the continental US takes just as long if not longer than traveling to London. I know going to Dublin, Ireland is shorter though
Boston to LHR is usually less than 6 hours wheels up to landed at Heathrow. I do that flight frequently. In the other direction against the jet stream, it's at least an hour more in the air. LAX, SFO, and SEA are against the jet stream are longer flights than BOS-LHR with the tail wind.
We were talking about changing it up at Christmas this year and meeting my sister & brother-in-law in Hawaii instead of the usual Vancouver Christmas. I looked at the new flight and concluded that there's no way I'm willing to sit that long in an economy seat and the seat reviews on SeatGuru are awful. If we do Hawaii, we'll leave from Vancouver.
I remember a non-stop from Honolulu to Atlanta back when smoking was allowed and that was about the worst flight I've ever been on. It didn't matter if the seat was in smoking or non-smoking.....five minutes in, the whole plane was a smoking section. AND I was seated between the not-so-small husband and what I swear was a Sumo wrestler.
Back in February-March, I traveled from Boston to Auckland, New Zealand and back. That was before the Boston-Honolulu flight started, so I couldn't consider it. I ended up going out via Houston and back via San Francisco, which obviously made the 15-hour part of the journey a non-stop flight over the Pacific. With this new option, I could have done the long part out of Boston. I'm not sure how that would be any better! I have to say, there is no way you'll enjoy a 15-hour flight in economy. You just have to endure it.
Boston to Honolulu must be flown with a widebody. Hawaiian Airlines has 24 A330s (the only airline other than the legacy carriers Delta, American and United) that has widebodies. Hawaiian has been supplementing the A330s with 16 A321neos (with 2 more to be delivered) which gives them more flexibility to fly from the mainland to the smaller Hawaiian airports besides Honolulu. Right now no USA airline is flying more than 3000 miles with a widebody.
Longest current schedule
1,739 mi LAS TYS Allegiant Air (Las Vegas to Knoxville Tennessee)
2,446 mi SFO MCO Frontier Airlines (San Francisco to Orland)
2,537 mi MSP SXM Sun Country Airlines (Minneapolis St Paul to San Martaan)
2,627 mi FLL LIM Spirit Airlines (Fort Lauderdale to Lima Peru)
2,695 mi OGG LAS Hawaiian Airlines (longest route schedule A321neo) Maui to Las Vegas
2,704 mi BOS SFO JetBlue Airways (Boston to San Francisco)
2,874 mi KOA ANC Alaska Airlines (Kona on big island of Hawaii to Anchorage)
2,917 mi HNL PHX Hawaiian Airlines (longest potential route with A321neo) (Honolulu to Phoenix)
Jet Blue will probably bet the first to fly a narrow body over 3000 miles when they introduce flights to London. Frontier will probably be the second, but will probably fly to Latin America from Denver or Miami.
I bet you can't wait to go over 4000 miles in a single aisle jet.
Does "widebody" plane mean wider seats and more legroom in Economy or just more seats for more passengers?
It's slang for a plane with two aisles.
The biggest single-aisle jet was a DC-8-63/73 with a maximum take-off weight of 161 metric tonnes, while the smallest dual aisle jet had a maximum take-off weight of 143 metric tonnes.
Even today Iceland Air flies a single aisle jet (B752) from Iceland to San Francisco, a great circle distance of 4,204 miles. Historically many single aisle jets like Boeing 707, McDonnel Douglas DC-8, and Vickers VC10, flew longer ranges. So my comment about not flying over 3,000 miles with a single-aisle jet only applies to the 7 out of 11 mainline USA airlines at present that do not operate a dual aisle jet. We live in an era of extremely uncomfortable economy seats.
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Longest domestic flight in U.S. with a narrowbody
