I was supposed to be taking this trip and this flight two months ago, a fifth annual President's Day trip, and fourth annual iteration of taking the week off plus a day or so to get a long trip out of it. The trips were all memorable in many ways, from visiting Victoria Falls and Cape Town in 2023 (bringing my parents to Cape Town - still a delight), to Turkey and Cape Town in 2024, to finally Brazil in 2025, a memorable trip. This was set-up to be another one, visiting two countries I've been to a lot - Thailand and Vietnam - but seeing places that I haven't been to before - Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Danang and Hoi An. Of course, would mix in a night in Bangkok a night in Singapore (to start and finish) and a day and a half in Ho Chi Minh City as well. Pretty damn perfect.
And then it became clear that my parents were moving into their new house basically the same time as President's Day weekend, and I didn't want to miss that. So I found a way to delay the trip last minute, pushing it to April, lining it up within a stone's throw (or week's throw) of my Birthday. The shift actually ended up getting one more to our group, making it four of us, instead of three. The other three took this entire week off, seeing Bangkok properly, but I'm joining them now, but not before the first toruism aspect of the trip - taking the longest flight in the world.
Now, I've taken a very similar "longest flight in teh world" before, and started a trip taking it before - another President's Day trip, this time to visit Bangkok in 2019. Half the value of that trip, to be honest, was to take the Newark to Singapore flight there and back. Well, then coming out of Covid, Singapore Airlines decided to not only bring back the EWR-SIN flight (after stopping it during Covid), but added another non-stop to the New York market, flying from JFK to Singapore. By "great circle" dsitance - the generally used metric to evaluate longest flights, this is five miles longer than EWR to Singapore. I've taken that route four times - but only once flying to Singapore (other three were SIN-EWR), and that wasn't in business class. This was - a sneaky use of Citi points right befroe Singapore announced a pretty aggressive points devaluation...\
Anyway, all that preamble over, let's get to the trip, and that means getting to the flight. The JFK-SIN flight timing is better, leaving at 10:15pm from New York, arriving in Singapore at 5am two days later (the Newark flight leaves at 10am, lands 5pm the next day). I got the JFK around 7:30pm, and within about 15 minutes had checked my bags and gone through security, and settled into the Capital One Lounge (which SQ business class gets to use) which is a beautiful little space just made for New York - bagel and coffee bar open 24 hrs, beautiful cocktail bar, nice dining options, including small a-la-carte bowls of mac and cheese adn chicken pot pie (what I got). The best parts though was that awesome flat white, which I drank in combination with a really nice Old Fashioned. All in all, my two hours in the Capital One Lounge was a nice way to start.
Singapore's plane on this route is the same they use for the Newark one, a modified A350-900 with mostly business class, so because it has such few passengers, and Singapore's super efficient service and style, they boarded at 9:45 for a 10:15 departure, and by 10:11 we were leaving the gate. I was tucked into 14K, with a nice view of the airport on departure, and the glistening skyscrapers of Manhattan in the background. Within ten minutes, the seatbelt sign was off, we were free to move about the cabin, and I had my boarding Champagne poured.
Despite the 17h35m duration, SQ wastes no team getting to a meal, which I geuss makes sense given it was now about 11pm. What's tough that SQ has to deal with is that because there is a 12-hour gap between the two cities, they're serving dinner at NY local time, but it was basically mid-day in Singapore. Then midway through the flight, about nine hours in, they serrve a second dinner, at what is now late morning NY time, and dinenrtime in Singapore. Weirdly, but I think arguably correctly, the "main" meal service is that mid-flight one. But it is basically two dinners.
For the first, the starter was a lovely smoked trout dish which was served with a truly great dressing. Lovely start of bitter and citrus. Lots of bread options as always with SQ as well. The main I picked was from the "book the cook" option, where there is a larger pre-order list of entrees. When you are flying from Singapore, that list is about 30 items long, but from an outstation (New York, in this case) it's about eight, which are still interesting. I got a beef fillet, pommes anna and shiitake mushrooms, which was also great. One of the best beef dishes I've had on a flight, quite tender despite beef being notoriously tough and overwrought on planes. All the while in parallel having some black label.
After dinner, stayed up for as long as I could (trying to get onto Singapore time, to some degree), so I played some Zelda on an emulator, watched all of One Battle After Another, Avengers: Infinty War (man, forgot how good the MCU was...) and doing it all while we were flying over the Atlantic. I finally gave in and slept around 4am NY time (6 hrs into the flight) as the plane was more or less getting to the shores of England. It is funny that I quote the great circle distance, but the flight route on this is vastly different - basically flying to India and then further - and this was the general route even before Russian airspace was closed.
Anyway, got some shut-eye, but I will say while SQ's service, food, entertainment and general vibe is incredible, the beds on the A350-900 aren't the greatest. They're this unique thing where you basically fold the chair down like you would on say a van back row seat, and then sleep on its back. They have really comfortable cushions and blankets, but the seat itself is hard - and this means you basically can't easily shift from flat-bed to upright.
Anyway, literally first world problems there - I was able to sleep until basically the midway point and then woke up when there were 8h30m left in teh flight. Crazy long, isn't it - I've flown a bunch of 13h to 15h flights (India, South Africa, Japan, etc.), but those extra 3-4 hours are quite meaningful. The second meal I say is the more formal of the two because it is plated so - not only coursed but they literally change everything course to course (instead of just the main part of the tray). The appetizer was a lovely beet and tomato dish (even though I had to waste most of the tomato), which led to a main of a braised beef noodle, and while this wasn't a full soup (like what the name-sake dish is), it was still awesome, with such great flavor. Desert also was a lovely apple cake, and the french Bordeaux that they had was excellent as well. From there, I stayed awake until the arrival-minus four hour mark, when I gave in to sleep until the end.
In the end, near eighteen hours went by super quickly, and wonderfully. There is a certain feeling on taking the longest flight in the world, and officially so. There is no situation in the world where you can land further away from where you took off in one single flight. I'm blessed I've been able to take this particular flight now five times - it will be six at the end of the trip, and do it on my favorite airline. Singapore always comes through.
