United completes world’s longest 787 route

United 787-9 N38950 about to touch down in Melbourne on Tuesday morning. (Bernie Proctor)

United’s inaugural direct service from Los Angeles to Melbourne touched down at Tullamarine at 0757 on Tuesday, completing the world’s longest Boeing 787 route in 15 hours and 10 minutes.

At 6,883nm (12,748km), the route eclipses Ethiopian Airlines’ Addis Ababa to Toronto service, which comes in at 6,217nm (11,514km).

Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president of marketing Randy Tinseth congratulated United, which is first North American carrier to operate the stretched 787-9, on the start of the new service and record route.

“It’s exciting for us to see the 787 do exactly what we promised our customers it would do – open up new routes all over the world,” Tinseth said on his Randy’s Journal blog.

The return flight, UA99, was due to depart Melbourne at 1015 local time.

United has scheduled a combination of Boeing 787-9 and 787-8s for the new Melbourne-Los Angeles route.

Qantas is now the only other airline offering direct flights between the Victorian capital and Los Angeles, after Virgin Australia withdrew its three times a week services on October 25.

Comments (10)

J.H

October 28, 2014 at 8:25 pm

Jealous much, I wish it would fly to BNE

marc

October 28, 2014 at 8:33 pm

That’s a long route.

Barry

October 29, 2014 at 7:28 am

Take note QF.

Steve

October 29, 2014 at 12:05 pm

What’s the pax load and fuel burn? Anyone ?

Captain

October 30, 2014 at 3:14 pm

I gather the 787-9 has much better range than the 787-8????

Dizz

October 31, 2014 at 10:51 am

Captain – The 787-9 does have some extra legs, but United is flying this route with a mix of 787-8 and 787-9 at least initially, so the 787-8 has the legs to make it as well.

See above: “United has scheduled a combination of Boeing 787-9 and 787-8s for the new Melbourne-Los Angeles route”