The longest nonstop flight in American Airlines' history landed at Brisbane Airport Monday morning after departing from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Saturday night and crossing the International Date Line on the almost 16-hour journey to Australia. The airline says passengers on the record-setting flight received gifts including a koala plushie, USA Today reports. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner landed around 30 minutes early, with a total of 15 hours 44 minutes flying time over the 8,473 miles from Texas to Queensland, according to Flightradar 24.
"This is not just linking two cities, this is linking two countries," Brisbane Airport spokesman Peter Doherty said during a livestream of the landing. The link, the longest flight on the airport's destination map, is expected to bring more than 141,000 people into Queensland over the next three years, reports Sky News Australia. Through American Airlines' partnership with Qantas, customers going the other way "will be able to connect to more than 200 destinations across the US, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America," the airport said.
Earlier this year, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom predicted strong long-haul flight growth, noting that premium seats sold well on the flights, Quartz reports. "If you take a look at our long-haul capability, our long-haul fleet capability, we're growing front cabin by about 30%," he said. The new American flight isn't the longest flight in the world: According to Flightradar24, that title goes to the Singapore Airlines flight from New York's JFK Airport to Singapore, with an average flight time of 18 hours, 27 minutes. Another Texas to Australia flight is in fifth place—the Dallas-Forth Worth to Melbourne flight on Qantas has an average time of 17 hours, 13 minutes. (More American Airlines stories.)
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