Going The Distance

Yet the aircraft performing these new ultra long-haul missions are established standard long-haul aircraft previously used on other routes by the airlines concerned, with no special advancement in passenger experience. So why the change now? It can’t just be that fuel is less than half the price now than it has been for quite some time. Rather, the context is a decline in passenger expectations, where a decade of flyers getting used to 14-16 hour flights means that the lowest common denominator of what travellers will put up with for what might feel like just one more hour has hit a nadir.

Airbus’s head of marketing communications, Alan Pardoe, categorises the ultra long-haul as “no more or no less than the airlines responding to a market desire. It is very clear from our perspective when Singapore Airlines was flying the A340-500 not so very long ago that it was a popular operation that was quite simply terminated because the cost of fuel went beyond reasonable levels. ”

But how long really is ultra long-haul?

The definition of ultra long-haul flights varies based on who is asked the question.

Most airlines serving Australia have for some decades operated long-haul flights, both across the Pacific and on the legs from south-east and east Asian transfer hubs to western Europe. Flights from Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are all timetabled at over the 12 hour mark, as are flights from eastern Australia to the Gulf hubs. Others take the 14 hour mark, which also includes dozens of flights in the category.

They’re long enough flights, but ultra long-haul is really regarded as those 16-hours and over sectors, while Singapore Airlines intends to return to its nonstop New York and Los Angeles services, which are over 18 hours (and were sometimes quite a bit over when affected by seasonal winds).

Eighteen hours is a fairly hard limit for current technology. But Airbus is pulling out all the stops for its A350-900ULR (ultra long-range) variant to operate the demanding 8,700nm Singapore-New York route, as Pardoe explains to Australian Aviation.

“Technically, we are raising the gross takeoff weight of the aeroplane to 280 metric tonnes. We’re increasing the fuel capacity of the aeroplane, and we’re doing so by filling the centre tank with a higher volume of fuel – we’re not adding fuel tanks or anything supplementary there. Singapore Airlines, or anybody else who cares to fly the ULR, will adjust the cabin offering to suit the market. That’s likely to be less seats than the 325-seat A350-900,” Pardoe notes.

But aircraft to suit 17-18 hour ultra long-haul missions have been around for over a decade – so what has changed to lead to the latest spate of world’s longest flights?

The renaissance of ultra long-haul is partly down to the cheapest fuel in 12 years

When we discuss ultra long-haul aircraft we tend to think of the Airbus A340- 500 and Boeing 777-200LR, but blocking out seats and restricting payloads has seen the 747-400ER, 777-300ER, A380 and 787-9 all operate 16-17 hour flights.

The principal restrictions of ultra long-haul flying since the introduction of aircraft designed for it, like the A340-500 and 777-200LR, have been fuel cost and passenger experience. Essentially, the former involves burning fuel to carry fuel, and the graph of the resulting airline economics rises exponentially.

Fuel is the principal cost in delivering ultra long-haul services – over two-thirds of total cost at peak fuel prices – and so the cost of fuel itself clearly affects their economic feasibility. When jet fuel is over US$3. 30 a gallon, as it was through much of 2010-13, the attractiveness of ultra long-haul operations falls. Indeed, it was during this time period that Singapore Airlines cut its Newark-Singapore and Los Angeles-Singapore flights, the longest of which (SQ21) was scheduled to take around 18-and-a-half hours over the nine years of its operation between June 2004 and November 2013.

Fuel prices may well not have been the only reason for cutting the route, of course, with maintenance requirements perhaps providing a make-or-break cut-off for the airline. Your author flew Newark-Singapore during its last days and the A340-500 itself was in need of cabin attention. My seat, in addition to a half-dozen others around the 75 per cent load cabin that I either tried to be moved to or was actually moved to, had issues with the electronic actuators, inflight entertainment, power sockets, and so on. Scuffed seat surrounds and lavatories also gave the impression of an aircraft that was ripe for an overhaul.

Yet, as Airbus’s Pardoe puts it, “Singapore Airlines, I am quite sure, would have continued to fly the A340-500 had the price of fuel not rocketed up. They have said themselves that they are very happy to be getting back into the ultra long-range market. ” With fuel now well under half that peak (the US Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ most recent month is January 2016, at US$1. 27), the time is right for the resumption of ultra long-haul services. Fittingly, the price of fuel is now as low as it has been since July 2004 – the month immediately after Singapore Airlines launched its nonstop flights to North America.

The passenger experience on the five longest scheduled flights is rarely above average

What passengers experience on the aircraft is as vital to the success of ultra long-haul flying as is the economics of the operation.

Singapore Airlines initially offered its angled lie-flat beds on the A340- 500 fleet together with a premium economy product it then called Executive Economy. The latter was removed when SIA refitted the aircraft with its Koito-produced fully flat business class beds with direct aisle access during 2008, and that product remained on the A340-500 until its retirement.

The new ultra long-haul is certainly not as revolutionary in terms of inflight provisions. The website Airline Route analysed GDS schedule information and OAG timetable information to determine the five longest routes in terms of blocked time during the northern hemisphere winter season 2016-17, the period which is currently being filed by airlines. With a tie for fifth place, this ended up being a comparison between six flights, all on standard equipment.

The longest is Qatar Airways’ Auckland-Doha leg, blocked at 17 hours and 30 minutes on the Boeing 777-200LR. That route is followed closely by United’s San Francisco-Singapore flight, at 17 hours and 25 minutes on a Boeing 787-9, and by Emirates’ Auckland-Dubai nonstop at 17 hours and 20 minutes, again on the Boeing 777-200LR.

At a 15 minute gap is American Airlines’ Dallas/Fort Worth to Hong Kong leg, at 17 hours and 5 minutes, using a Boeing 777-300ER. Joint fourth at 17 hours exactly are Air India’s Delhi-San Francisco flight on a Boeing 777-200LR and, perhaps surprisingly, Philippine Airlines’ Los Angeles- Cebu service using the Airbus A340-300.

(The great circle route distance between Cebu and LAX is ‘just’ 6,382nm, while, by contrast, Qantas’s DFW-SYD flight, until March the longest in the world, covers 7,454nm in 16 hours and 55 minutes. Other notable flights include Delta’s Atlanta-Johannesburg at 7,333nm and Emirates’ Dubai-LAX at 7,246nm. ) Neither Air India nor PAL offer noteworthy or competitive products on these routes (not least due to Air India’s infamous cabin maintenance and seat reliability issues), so we will focus on the remaining four. And notably, very few of these top four flights offer an industry-leading, or even an above-average, passenger experience in any class.

In terms of business class, Qatar’s 777-200LR offers fully flat beds in a 2-2-2 configuration: average. United’s 787 offers the same. Emirates’ angled lie-flat seats in a 2-3-2 configuration are well below par, and its newly announced fully flat 777 seats are not much better, still in a 2-3- 2 configuration. American’s JPA/Cathay Pacific-designed Zodiac Cirrus outward-facing herringbone seats are among the best in the sky, but they’re the only such business class seating among the ultra long-haul leaders.

First class is only offered on American’s 777-300ER, and on Air India’s 777-200LR until the airline removes it, neither of which have the suites (nor, frankly, the consistent levels of customer service or soft product offerings, despite American’s recent attempts at improvement) to be considered top-notch. Premium economy seats are not offered on any of these flights, although American and United do offer extra-legroom economy sections of their main cabins to elites or for purchase. American will also introduce a premium economy cabin to these aircraft “over the next three years”, the airline said in late 2015.

In economy, Qatar’s 777-200LR offers 33in pitch in a 3-3-3 configuration, which these days remains industry-leading. (The airline has said it has no intention to convert these aircraft into the much tighter 3-4-3 configuration it now uses on its 777-300ERs. ) United’s 787 offers 32in of pitch but in the hip-bruising 3-3-3 configuration: below average. Ditto Emirates’ 32in but 3-4-3 on the 777 cross-section.

Ultra long-haul business will continue to evolve and premium economy will continue to replace it

As first class declines, “the airlines in general have transformed the business product into the full flat experience that it is today,” Airbus’s Pardoe says.

“Especially on the long-haul and ultra long-haul, that is what characterises business class: full flat ability to make it a bed and sleep product. Clearly the trend is towards full flat as opposed to the lie flat product, and that’s because more and more seat vendors are providing such a product. ” Boeing’s Larry Schneider, vice president and chief project engineer for the 777 program, agrees, highlighting that many of the business class seats on today’s 787s are looking long in the tooth.

“It’s already 10 years old from when they ordered the airplane and configured it until when they took delivery and entered it into service. Now, in service for three years, they’re looking at whether they need to do an upgrade already to stay competitive. It’s a very competitive market. The seat guys are really not so able to respond right now because there’s so much work that they all have. ” On-time and to-certification business class seat delivery, indeed, is a significant problem within the industry after a period of over-consolidation among the larger players.

In terms of ultra long-haul flights, of course, “it becomes a fallout of what the business traveller can afford to be able to justify the nonstop flight,” Schneider says. “Maybe you can’t afford the business class seat, but you can afford more than the economy seat. That’s where you see the premium economy with maybe 34 or 35in of pitch, maybe a seat that’s an inch wider, because even a little bit more comfort over an ultra-long range flight is worth a few more dollars to you even if you can’t afford the full business class lie-flat capability. ” That gap is what Airbus calls the ‘comfort canyon’ between business and economy. “If the current trend is maintained,” Airbus’ Pardoe says, “it would appear that you’re going to see more and more either economy plus or premium economy products coming along. That has definitely been the tendency of the past very few years. We’ve seen it on the A380 with premium economy as a distinct product, and we would expect that to continue to be the trend, as the airlines become more aware of what passenger expectations are, and become better at segmenting those expectations, and packaging whatever class it may be to suit whatever category of passengers it may be to give them the travel experience that they want. Evolution is permanent, so ten years out, that’s a long way. ”

Down the back, economy bread and circuses may have reached its limits

Jason Rabinowitz, the passenger experience data expert from flight search and data site Routehappy, which maintains the most comprehensive database of inflight products, highlights the crux of the issue with ultra long-haul economy.

“That seat is home to somebody for what could be nearly an entire day. Sufficient ‘living space’ to be comfortable for an extended period of time is crucial, as is somewhere in the cabin for passengers to be able to escape to. This could be a walk-up snack area in one of the galleys or possibly a small refrigerator with chilled drinks. Passengers cannot be expected to remain in their seats for 18+ hours. ” Daniel Baron, CEO of LIFT Strategic Design, a Tokyo-based design studio specialising in airline brand design, cabin design and customer experience development, agrees.

“Airlines can instantly enhance the ultra long-haul economy class experience and in turn brand perception by incorporating into the cabin dedicated ‘destinations’ for passengers to experience, eg to pick up snacks or stretch or send emails. They need not be massive bar counters; rather they can, if cleverly done, be designed into galleys or walls next to lavatories or cross aisles. Such dedicated spaces create additional opportunities to wow customers with unique design and communicate “this airline cares about me too”.

This need to be able to get up and move around the cabin is especially true given the number of airlines now operating or planning to operate the narrower seats on, say, a ten-abreast Boeing 777 or nine-abreast 787, and particularly with regard to those that have not adjusted seat pitch to 32in or greater.

However, the trend seems to be to use the ancient Roman tactic to pacify seething masses: bread and circuses. Airlines are investing into economy class food on long-haul flights – even down to the actual bread itself – while the modern-day circuses are the increasingly capable seatback entertainment screens found on most long-haul aircraft delivered in the last twenty years.

As Airbus’s Pardoe puts it, “You’ve got better entertainment, something to pass the time – whether that is hundreds of channels of entertainment or the ability to plug in your own device and do your own thing. ” The issue is, of course, ensuring that the seat structure, cushioning and surrounds are comfortable enough for an ultra long-haul flight. No easy task, and LIFT’s Daniel Baron doesn’t mince his words.

“For economy class pax, the expectation of ultra long-haul is quite different from that of short/medium-haul, where negative perceptions from tight pitch or few creature comforts or disappointing crew are mitigated, to an extent, from knowing that one will be off the metal tube relatively soon. With long-haul, however, the expectation of the seat in economy is of prolonged torture, and for the most part that is what’s delivered. ” Questions of comfort are one thing, but questions of health and welfare are another. Deep vein thrombosis is a worry with ageing populations who are also getting larger in both height and girth, and who therefore may not be able to shift to as many positions in smaller seats. At the end of this line of logic, Singapore Airlines had a special corpse cupboard on its A340-500 aircraft. What will be the impact on passenger appetite for ultra long-haul in this world of increasingly Wi-Fi-connected aircraft when a passenger death

The expectation of the seat in economy is of prolonged torture, and for the most part that is what’s delivered.

halfway through a 17-hour flight hits social media? So what can an airline, its seatmakers and its design partners do for the economy passenger’s comfort and wellbeing? “Much more attention to the humble seat bottom and backrest cushions is needed,” Baron advocates. “Their design and construction can make or break the trip. No level of personal service can compensate for an aching rear end on a seat from which one has no escape. Carriers could vastly improve the experience simply through frequent replacement of bottom cushions (and could leverage that attention to comfort in marketing communication). ” Baron also acknowledges that the industry needs to evolve away from using seat pitch alone to compare inflight product in the age of increasingly sculpted, increasingly narrow seats. “Economy seat pitch on ultra long-haul flights needs to improve for sure, but in order to achieve that, first what is needed is a new metric that goes beyond the traditional pitch, due to differing seat designs and definitions of “good”. The metric should incorporate various distances: ie, headrest to reclined seatback, plus front of seat cushion to seatback, plus cushion width between armrests. ” “One of the problems,” Baron notes wryly, “is that the people at the top who sign the long-haul economy class seat contracts are rarely sitting in those seats. If and when they do, improvements will be more likely. ”

Modern aircraft do, however, give a better passenger experience in non-seat terms

“The 787 and A350-900 will have the capability to fly incredibly long routes nonstop, and with a sizeable amount of economy passengers,” Routehappy’s Rabinowitz says.

“Whereas older aircraft such as the Singapore Airlines A340-500 were all-business class or all premium economy and business class, these newer aircraft will be capable of flying ultra long-haul routes in a typical two or three class configuration. New nonstop routes such as San Francisco to Singapore are becoming possible for airlines to operate economically, but with a typical product you might find on any other long-haul aircraft. ” Increasingly, Rabinowitz notes, “the longer the flight, the more important Wi-Fi access becomes.

We are talking about flights that last nearly an entire day, giving passengers ample opportunity to get a full night’s rest, enjoy a few meals, but still have many hours remaining for productive work. Wi-Fi will be crucial on ultra long-haul flights to attract business passengers who might otherwise stop along the way to check in with the rest of the world. ” Both the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 offer linefit capability of inflight satellite connectivity. More modern aircraft like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 do come with a more attractive cabin with larger bins, bigger windows, lower cabin altitude, higher air humidity and a quieter cabin.

Your author recently flew Scoot Sydney-Singapore-Taipei-Tokyo, half in the last row of the 787 and half in ScootBiz premium economy, and found himself significantly less exhausted than expected on arrival, even after a red-eye connection in Taiwan.

“The cherry on the cake from our point of view,” Airbus’s Pardoe says, “is if you’re able to fly on a quieter aeroplane, that helps the whole lot. ” Noting that the benefits of a lower external volume are hard to quantify, Pardoe points towards the fact that passengers and online reviewers mention the quieter cabins of newer aircraft: in Airbus’s case the A380 and A350. “Clearly it stands out, it’s something they recognise, it’s something they remember and it’s something they appreciate. ” Of course, as designer Baron highlights, quieter cabins come with their own issues. Where previous generations of aircraft were in essence Mach

The longer the flight, the more important Wi-Fi access becomes.

0. 85 white noise generators, less background noise means that design work needs to be done in order to muffle sound. Anyone flying on the upper deck of a Lufthansa Airbus A380 when its older angled lie-flat seats were installed, who heard the after-dinner chorus of a herd of migrating German middle managers stupefied into snoring by white beer and brown food, can attest to the need for acoustic engineering.

“In all cabins, but particularly in premium cabins, airlines should be designing for peace and quiet,” Daniel Baron says. “It is rather silly for carriers to spend many millions on fully flat seats when high-revenue passengers in rows behind and in front of galleys cannot sleep due to noise from banging and clanging. And as engines become quieter, the number of audible items increases. There are ways to address this problem and airlines should do so at the very first meeting with the airframer and suppliers. ” New materials are being designed for acoustics, with micro-honeycomb plastics from moulding suppliers like Sekisui SPI, suede-effect surrounds, fabric accents and other engineering achievements. Yet, of course, these require flammability and other safety testing, and the aviation cycle of purchase and upgrade is slow.

The mix of classes is likely to continue to evolve as airlines balance ultra long-haul and long-haul fleets

“In Asia and the Middle East we see lots of long-haul aircraft with enhanced creature comforts doing short and medium-haul due to the nature of their networks. That product consistency is a powerful competitive weapon, ie even when stuck in economy, the business traveller, who values predictability, at least knows that she/he expects a certain product/service level on each sector,” Baron notes.

“Creating a sub-fleet with a different level of comfort adds cost and complexity: what happens if a substitution is needed; how do customers perceive the brand when going from the more comfortable aircraft to the less; are there budgets and staff for a reconfiguration program; will the market have changed by the time a new product rolls out; how does a different product affect code shares and partner products, etc?” To an extent, Qatar Airways is taking the opposite approach with its 777- 200LR fleet, which it will use for its Auckland service and which it says will not be refitted into the 3-4-3 narrower economy class seats. Singapore Airlines previously took the sub-fleet approach with its New York and Los Angeles services, and it would not be surprising if the carrier again customised its US nonstop A350-900ULR models in the cabin as well as in the fuel tanks.

Boeing’s Schneider puts the airframer position into context. “We have customers who are looking at upgrading their seats and changing their class of service because they’re putting airplanes on missions they didn’t necessarily envision when they configured that cabin ten years ago. An airline’s view is not as long-range as you might imagine. They’re looking out five years max at what configuration they’re going to put their cabin in, who their competition is, and what they’re going to do to compete and, ultimately, delight their customers. If you look at an airline like Emirates that is doubling the size of its fleet every five years, and then you talk to Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, or Qantas, and you say ‘did you really think you were going to be competing with these airlines from the Middle East five years ago?’, they’d say ‘no, we didn’t see it on the horizon’, and if they did they might have taken a different approach. ” LIFT Design’s Baron suggests one such approach.

“Generally speaking, first impressions really count for a lot. But in long-haul and ultra long-haul, customers are looking at the same surfaces for many hours after that first impression. Airlines can optimise their investment in the experience by getting the details right, meaning colours, patterns and textures of wall coverings, fabrics, carpets and curtains, lavatory surfaces, etc. On long-haul and ultra long-haul, positive lasting impressions can indeed influence repeat purchase. There may be no quantitative data proving that, but typically the award winning airlines are the ones that ‘get it’ in terms of aesthetics, and those awards help to fuel loyalty and yield. ” At the end of the day, Boeing’s Schneider says, those are key factors: airlines “have to react to that competition, which is why they look at their cabins, looking at how they can differentiate themselves, looking at what classes of service they can offer to get some of those passengers back, or ultimately do they need a different airplane model to go create a different level of competition?” “The optimal solution,” Baron suggests, “is for a single standard for all long-haul and ultra long-haul, with enhanced comfort for all customers, a brilliant marketing team to communicate the proposition, and a robust revenue management system to bring in the numbers needed to sustain the product. ” Sounds like pie in the sky? It shouldn’t be. The new ultra long-haul shouldn’t have to be about a decline in passenger expectations rather than an advancement in passenger experience. As the Boeing 777-8 continues to take form and eventually takes wing, even longer nonstop flights will become commonplace, with Alan Joyce calling Sydney-JFK nonstops the “holy grail” for Qantas. Boeing is already working on sidewall changes to eke out even a few centimetres more cross-section for seat width purposes on the 777-8 and 777-9.

Seventeen-plus hour flights are here to stay – at least until fuel prices double again – and relying on the lowest common denominator approach doesn’t feel like a long-term solution to ultra long-haul.

How Ultra Long-haul Aircraft Evolved

Boeing’s Larry Schneider, vice president and chief project engineer for the 777 program, outlines the evolution of the Boeing 777 program from its initial three “market” types to the newest versions, over the 21 years it has been in service: “The A market airplane was viewed as more of a regional airplane, with much shorter range, around 535,000 pounds takeoff gross weight. The B market airplane was the extended range, the -200ER, and the takeoff gross weight went up to about 630,000 pounds, and at that point it became a long-range international airplane: what we would call transpacific range capability. Anything greater than 7,000 miles range in those days would be considered trans- Pacific, where you could fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo, other parts of China and around that Pacific long-range mission. The European missions were not as demanding in terms of going from the east coast of the United States to Europe. Obviously that’s a pretty easy flight for a widebody long-range airplane. And then as time developed the stretched version of that airplane – what we would consider a simple stretch of the -200ER – became the -300.

“That was an increase in capacity and efficiency, but didn’t really have true trans- Pacific range capability. It was a really great airplane regionally and interregionally, around Europe and within Asia. But the market demand to take that larger airplane and give it true trans-Pacific range is really where the -300ER airplane came from: that need to fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo or from Singapore to London. At that time Singapore Airlines really wanted to be able to fly Singapore to London, which became a very challenging route for the design requirements of the airplane. That’s where we introduced the higher takeoff gross weight version of the airplane with new engines. At that point in time we needed more thrust on the airplane, we needed a new and bigger engine, which was provided by GE with the GE90-115B with 115,000lb of thrust, and we extended the wingtips to have more wingspan and more efficiency in the airplane to enable longer ranged flight.

“That’s where the current family of airplanes came from, where we increased the takeoff gross weight up to 775,000 pounds, which is actually beyond the original family growth standpoint. We grew it further than we ever thought we could grow the airplane, because of the availability of that higher thrust engine. Out of that came the current family, the -300ER, the -200LR and the 777 Freighter. Those models were now available because of higher gross weight, longer range capability of the engines, and the higher thrust engines being available. ”