A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE TEN LONGEST ULTRA-LONG-RANGE AIR ROUTES

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A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE TEN LONGEST ULTRA-LONG-RANGE AIR ROUTES
Transport and Telecommunication                                                                              Vol. 20, no. 2, 2019

Transport and Telecommunication, 2019, volume 20, no. 2, 162–174
Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Lomonosova 1, Riga, LV-1019, Latvia
DOI 10.2478/ttj-2019-0015

         A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE TEN LONGEST
                ULTRA-LONG-RANGE AIR ROUTES
                           Glenn Baxter 1, Panarat Srisaeng 1, Graham Wild 2
                     1
                         School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Suan Dusit University
                                    Huahin Prachaup Khiri Khan, Thailand, 77110
                                  g_glennbax@dusit.ac.th; panarat_sri@dusit.ac.th.
                                         2
                                        School of Engineering, RMIT University
                                     Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000
                                              graham.wild@rmit.edu.au

          In recent times, several airlines have commenced the operation of ultra-long-range (ULR) services. Using a mixed methods
research approach, this paper examines the aircraft deployment, the target passenger market segments, the aircraft cabin
configurations, the flight stage lengths and the available seat kilometres (ASKs) produced on the world’s ten longest air routes. The
study found that some airlines are operating ultra-long-range services on a hub-to-hub basis, whilst other airlines are operating these
services to open new spoke city markets. The case airlines are targeting the premium and leisure travel market segments. The
Boeing 787-9 is the most popular aircraft type for these services followed by the Airbus A380-800 and the Boeing B777-200LR
aircraft. Qatar Airways Doha to Auckland service has the longest flight stage length (14,535 kilometres). The other 9 air routes all
exceed 13,400 kilometres in length. The greatest number of annual ASKs are produced on the Emirates Dubai to Auckland services
(5.09 billion ASKs) and the smallest number of annual ASKs are on the Qantas Airways Perth to London services (2.49 billion
ASKs).
Keywords: airlines, aircraft, available seat kilometres (ASKs), case study, passenger transportation, ultra-long-range flights

1. Introduction

        The air transport industry is critical for global commerce and tourism and it also plays a
fundamental role in facilitating economic growth, this is particularly so for developing countries (Air
Transport Action Group, 2017). In 2016, the world’s airlines carried around 3.79 billion passengers and
52.6 million tonnes of air cargo (International Civil Aviation Organization, 2017). In the world air
transport industry, passenger airlines have defined and implemented two principal business models: the
full-service network carrier (FSNC) and the low-cost carrier (LCC) models (Taneja, 2016; Whyte and
Lohmann, 2017). A “full service network carrier” (FSNC) is an airline that focuses on providing a broad
range of both pre-flight and inflight services, including different cabin classes in their aircraft, and
connecting flights (Ehmer et al., 2008) The full-service network carrier’s business model forms the focus
of the present study.
        Over the past decade, several of the world’s major full-service network carriers (FSNCs) have
commenced ultra-long-range (ULR) services. According to Baxter and Bardell (2017), an ultra-long-
range (ULR) flight is any non-stop flight carrying an economically meaningful payload of passengers and
air cargo over more than 7,000 nautical miles (nm) (12,964 km). Emirates Airlines (IATA Airline Code
EK) commenced non-stop services between its Dubai hub and Los Angeles in 2008. Delta Air Lines
(IATA Airline Code DL) commenced non-stop services from Atlanta to Johannesburg and return in June
2009, Etihad Airways (IATA Airline Code EY) launched non-stop services from Abu-Dhabi to Los
Angeles service in June 2014, Qantas Airways (IATA Airline Code QF) began services from Sydney to
Dallas Fort Worth in September 2014, United (IATA Airline Code UA) and Singapore (SQ) Airlines San
Francisco to Singapore routes in June and October 2016, respectively. In addition, Emirates Airline
commenced non-stop services from Dubai to Auckland in March 2016, Qatar Airways (IATA Airline
Code QR) began Doha to Auckland service in February 2017, United Airlines launched Los Angeles to
Singapore non-stop services in October 2017. More recently, United Airlines launched a non-stop service
from Houston to Sydney in January 2018 and Qantas Airways began non-stop services from Perth to

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London’s Heathrow Airport at the end of March 2018. These ultra-long-range (ULR) services are the
focus of the current study.
       The objective of this study is to examine the aircraft deployment, the target passenger market
segments, the aircraft cabin configuration, and the available seat kilometres (ASKs) produced on these
ULR services. Airlines sell passenger kilometres but produce seat kilometres. Thus, like revenue
passenger kilometres, available seat kilometres (ASKs) reflect the spatial nature of the airline’s output
(Gillen, 2017). Available seat kilometres (ASKs) is the total number of seats offered on a flight multiplied
by the stage length flown by the aircraft. ASKs are commonly used as a key measure of air transport
passenger capacity in the global airline industry (Gross and Klemmer, 2014; O'Connell and Williams,
2016).

2. Background

2.1. Airline market segmentation
       Capturing a competitive advantage in the air transport industry is quite difficult. Consequently, it
may be an easier option for a successful firm to capture a smaller niche or a segment of a market.
According to Reid and Bojanic (2010), “market segmentation is pursuing a marketing strategy whereby
the total potential market is divided into homogeneous sub-sets of customers, each of which responds
differently to the marketing mix of the organization” (p. 127). Historically, airlines have segmented
passengers into two discrete categories which are based on the purpose for travel: business and leisure
(Fig. 1) (Cook and Billig, 2017, Clark, 2017; Shaw, 2016). Airlines have also sub-segmented the air
travel market segments into discrete sub-segments. Business travellers may be travelling to attend
conferences, or they may be travelling on a marketing visit or travelling on a reward program incentive.
Leisure travellers may be travelling on holidays, or for study purposes, or visiting friends and relatives
(VFRs) (Fig. 1). Importantly, there are some markets that principally attract business travellers. In
contrast, there are some other markets that are dominated by leisure travellers (Cook and Billig, 2017).

                            Figure 1. Airline passenger market segments and sub-segments

2.2. Aircraft cabin configurations
        The travel classes on aircraft are typically divided into a 2, 3 or 4 class cabin layouts. Domestic
airline services usually offer both business and economy classes. On international flights, an airline may
configure an aircraft with a first class, business class, premium economy, and economy class cabin
configurations (Singh, 2008). Other airlines may decide to offer a 3-class cabin configuration on their
international services, which comprises first class, business class and economy class.
        The aircraft interior layout and configuration affect the width and pitch of each seat, and thereby,
determines the amount space that is available to each passenger (Doganis, 2010). A key aspect of
passenger-related comfort relates to the width and pitch of the airline seat. Pitch is the distance between
two identical seats (Vasigh et al., 2018), and is a measure of the leg-room that is available to passengers.
Individual space in the aircraft appears to be the key comfort variable for passengers, but so too is the
quality of the seating provided by the airline. Comfort is regarded as very important for passengers flying
on long-haul intercontinental services, as well as for those flying on business and those travelling on
leisure/holiday trips (Doganis, 2010).

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       A number of airlines have introduced premium economy cabins on their long-haul routes (Clark,
2016; Doganis, 2010). Based on the concerns of many airline customers that there is a clearly defined
requirement for a product that falls between an airline’s economy and business class in long-haul markets
(Taneja, 2005), Virgin Atlantic Airways was the first airline to introduce a premium economy product in
the mid-1990s for passengers willing to pay the higher end economy fares (Doganis, 2006; Taneja, 2005).
The objective of the premium economy cabin class is to provide passengers paying the full economy air
fare with a dedicated and quieter aircraft cabin with several inches more leg-room than the normal
economy class and better in-flight catering than that offered in economy class (Doganis, 2010). This
product has proved to be quite popular with those high-end leisure travellers and business travellers
paying for their airfare themselves. The use of the premium economy product is also considered
favourable during economic downturns when business people often do not want to pay the higher
business class airfares (Taneja, 2005).

2.3. Full-service network carrier route network design and strategies

        As previously noted, the FSNC business model is typically based upon the operations of a hub-
and-spoke route network (Baxter and Bardell, 2017; Whyte and Lohmann, 2017). In the FSNC hub-and-
spoke system, airlines develop their networks by combining features from non-stop and multi-stop
routing patterns. The hub operational system is based on flights arriving from multiple points (spokes) at
a hub airport where passengers, baggage and air cargo connect to flights departing to multiple points. So,
after a short turnaround period, an equally substantial number of turn-around flights travel out along the
spoke routes from the hub airport. The hub airport thereby acts as a gathering and consolidation point for
flights operating to and from multiple destinations (Dempsey and Gesell, 1997; Reynolds-Feighan 1994).
        The hub-and-spoke strategy of FSNCs leads to a focus on primary airports. These are airports,
which are in a highly populated urban area/region or business centre, and normally serving more than
several million passengers per annum (Belobaba, 2016).
        As the numbers of passengers expands on in an origin and destination market (O&D) or city pair,
it becomes economically viable for airlines to deploy larger aircraft types and/or provide more frequent
services. Furthermore, in the airline industry, there are often “thin” routes, that is, routes that have a small
number of passengers per day, and “dense” routes, where there are substantial numbers of passengers
travelling each day (Morrison, 2015). Dense air travel routes will have more services, which will be more
convenient for the airline’s passengers (Forsyth et al., 2016).

3. Research Method

        This study used a mixed methods research design (Creswell, 2014; Leavy, 2017; Teddlie and
Tashakkor, 2009) that was exploratory in nature. The study followed an inductive approach using both
qualitative and quantitative research methods (Crowther and Lancaster, 2008; Lancaster, 2005). The
qualitative and quantitative data for this study was obtained from a range of documents and sources,
including airline websites, airline and industry reports, airline press releases and air transport and airport
industry-related magazines, and industry press articles. The study therefore used secondary data,
specifically organizational records, to investigate the research problem in the qualitative part of the study.
The three principles of data collection suggested by Yin (2018) were followed in this study: the use of
multiple sources of case evidence, creation of a database on the subject, and the establishment of a chain
of evidence.
        The documents collected for the study were examined by document analysis. Document analysis is
frequently used by researchers when conducting case studies. Document analysis focuses on the
information and data from formal documents and company records that are gathered in the research
project (Oates, 2006; Ramon Gil-Garcia, 2012). The documents collected for the study were examined
according to four criteria: authenticity, credibility, representativeness and meaning (Scott, 2004, 2014;
Scott and Marshall, 2009).
        All the documents gathered for the study were downloaded into a case study database (Yin, 2018).
The documents gathered for the study were all in English. Each document was carefully assessed, and key
themes were coded and recorded. In addition, to prevent bias occurring in the qualitative analysis,
documents from different sources were analysed in the study (van Schoor, 2017). This approach helped
verify the themes that were detected in the documents collected in the study (Morris, 2017).

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        To explain the qualitatively observed difference, some quantitative measures were utilised. These
include the Fisher exact test to measure the degree of association between non-parametric (ordinal and or
nominal) variables. This was utilised in place of the more common Chi-Squared test, as the sample sizes
are so low, and hence, the conditions for the Chi-Squared test are violated (Sheskin, 2004; Weinberg and
Abramowitz, 2008). The Fisher exact tests were carried out in SPSS (Weinberg and Abramowitz, 2008).
In addition to this, a Mann-Whitney U test was utilised to test the difference between sample medians
(Israel, 2008; Naghshpour, 2016). Furthermore, correlation metrics were also calculated, including both
the Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the Spearman’s ranked correlation coefficient (Sharma, 2005;
Weinberg and Abramowitz, 2008).

4. Case Study Results

         Table 1 shows all of the relevant information for the ULR services investigated. The data is ranked
based on the distance (in kilometres), and flight number indicates which airline is offering the service. Of
note are the commencement dates, showing when each service began operating. It should also be noted
that the cabin configuration of all services is mixed between premium and economy, while the exact mix
(first class etc) is indicated for each service.

4.1. Geographical location of airlines operating ultra-long-range services

        Figure 4a shows the geographical location of the airlines that were operating the ten longest air
routes at the time of the study. As can be observed in Figure 4a, the three major Middle East-based
airlines – Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways – operate four of the world’s longest air
routes. These carriers have been very successful in exploiting their favourable geographical location and
have developed extensive route networks that link their hub airports with key markets all around the
world. Also, as can be seen in Figure 2a, Delta Airlines and United Airlines, both headquartered in the
United States, are also operating ultra-long-range services (four routes). In the Asia/Pacific region, there
are only two airlines operating ultra-long-haul services – Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines. At the
time of the study, there were no African nor European-based airlines operating ultra-long-range services.
Figure 4b shows that United Airlines operates the most ultra-long-range routes (28% of total) from their
key hubs located in Los Angeles and San Francisco to Singapore. Both United Airlines and Singapore
Airlines are members of the Star Global passenger alliance. Thus, United Airlines can potentially expand
the passenger traffic base on these services through alliance arrangements with Singapore Airlines.
Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways both account for 18 per cent of the top ten ultra-long services.
Qantas is a member of the oneworld global airline alliance, and thus, the airline’s services from Sydney to
Dallas Fort Worth link up with American Airlines, a fellow oneworld alliance member, thereby enabling
both airlines to expand their passenger traffic volumes. Similarly, the Qantas ultra-long-range services
from Perth to London enable the airline to tap into other oneworld members services at London Heathrow
Airport. Qatar Airways has linked Auckland, a spoke city, into its global route network. Qatar Airways is
able to leverage its global network to optimise passenger traffic on its services from Doha to Auckland
and Auckland to Doha. Emirates Airline has a similar strategy, and its services from Dubai to Auckland
and Dubai to Los Angeles and return are carefully timed to enable passengers to connect onto flights to
key spoke cities, many of which are major cities, via the airport’s hub at Dubai Airport. Singapore
Airlines service from Singapore to San Francisco is a hub-to-hub service as it links its major hub at
Singapore’s Changi Airport with United Airlines hub at San Francisco (and potentially other Star
Alliance members operating to San Francisco. Singapore Airlines operates an extensive Australasian,
Asia and Sub-continent route network, and consequently, the airline can source passenger traffic
originating in the USA and carry these passengers to the Changi Hub where the passengers can connect to
outbound Singapore Airlines outbound flights to their destination. The Etihad Airways service from Abu
Dhabi to Los Angeles is a spoke flight as it links the airline’s hub at Abu Dhabi Airport with Los
Angeles. As noted earlier, Etihad Airways also operates a hub-and-spoke route network and the addition
of Los Angeles as a spoke city provides the airline with an opportunity to source Los Angeles destined
passenger traffic originating from multiple spoke cities throughout its network. A similar situation applies
on the Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi sector where United States origin passengers can transfer to outbound
flights from Abu Dhabi airport to their destination. Figure 2b shows that Delta Airlines, Etihad Airways,
Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines each account for 9% of the total ultra-long-range services operated
at the time of the study.

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Table 1. Key statistics for the ULR services
  Flight    City Pairs Frequency        Aircraft           Cabin                      Distance         ASKs         Commenced
 QR9201     DOH-AKL      Daily    Boeing B777-200LR       42J217Y                      14,535      1,374,066,225      5/02/2017
 QR9211     AKL-DOH      Daily    Boeing B777-200LR       42J217Y                      14,535      1,374,066,225     5/02/2017
  QF92      PER-LHR      Daily       Boeing 787-9      42J28W166Y                      14,499      1,248,943,860     24/03/2018
  QF102     LHR-PER      Daily       Boeing 787-9      42J28W166Y                      14,499      1,248,943,860     24/03/2018
 EK4483     DXB-AKL      Daily         A380-800        14F76J401Y                      14,201      2,545,032,215     1/03/2016
 EK4493     AKL-DXB      Daily         A380-800        14F76J401Y                      14,201      2,545,032,215     1/03/2016
  UA374     LAX-SIN      Daily       Boeing 787-9      48J63W141Y                      14,114      1,298,205,720     27/10/2017
  UA364     SIN-LAX      Daily       Boeing 787-9      48J63W141Y                      14,114      1,298,205,720     27/10/2017
 UA1015     IAH-SYD      Daily       Boeing 787-9      48J63W141Y                      13,834      1,272,451,320     18/01/2018
 UA1005     SYD-IAH      Daily       Boeing 787-9      48J63W141Y                      13,834      1,272,451,320     18/01/2018
  QF76      SYD-DFW      Daily      Airbus A380-800  14F64J35W371Y                     13,805      2,438,791,300     29/09/2014
  QF86      DFW-SYD      Daily      Airbus A380-800  14F64J35W371Y                     13,805      2,438,791,300     29/09/2014
  SQ327      SIN-SFO     Daily   Airbus A350-900 XWB   42J24W187Y                      13,593      1,255,245,585     23/10/2016
  SQ317      SFO-SIN     Daily   Airbus A350-900 XWB   42J24W187Y                      13,593      1,255,245,585     23/10/2016
  UA18       SFO-SIN     Daily       Boeing 787-9      48J63W141Y                      13,593      1,250,284,140     1/06/2016
  UA28       SIN-SFO     Daily       Boeing 787-9      48J63W141Y                      13,592      1,250,284,140     1/06/2016
 DL2009     ATL-JNB      Daily    Boeing B777-200LR    J37W36Y218                      13,582      1,442,612,130     1/06/2009
 DL2019     JNB-ATL      Daily    Boeing B777-200LR    J37W36Y218                      13,582      1,442,612,130     1/06/2009
 EY17110    AUH-LAX      Daily    Boeing B777-300ER     F8J40Y282                      13,503      1,626,436,350     1/06/2014
 EY17010    LAX-AUH      Daily    Boeing B777-300ER     F8J40Y282                      13,503      1,626,436,350     1/06/2014
 EK21511    DXB-LAX      Daily      Airbus A380-800     14F76J401Y                     13,420      2,405,065,300     3/12/2013
 EK21611    LAX-DXB      Daily      Airbus A380-800    14F76J401Y                      13,420      2,405,065,300     3/12/2013

Legend: AKL=Auckland, DOH= Doha, LHR=London Heathrow Airport, PER=Perth, DXB= Dubai, LAX= Los Angeles,
SIN=Singapore, IAH= Houston, SYD=Sydney, DFW= Dallas Fort Worth, SFO= San Francisco, ATL= Atlanta,
JNB=Johannesburg, AUH= Abu Dhabi. J=Business class, Y=Economy class, W=Premium economy, F=First class.
Sources: Adapted from 1 Biradar (2017), 2 Qantas Airways (2018a), 3 Emirates Airline (2018), 4 United Airlines (2017a),
5
  United Airlines (2017b), 6 Qantas Airways (2018b), 7 Singapore Airlines (2016, 2018a), 8 United Airlines (2016, 2018),
9
  Delta Air Lines (2008, 2018), 10 Etihad Airways (2014), 3 Emirates Airline (2016) and Great Circle Mapper (2018).

           a)                                                         b)

        Figure 2. a) The geographical location of the full-service network carriers operating ultra-long-range services, and
                                        b) the individual airlines operating these services.
        Legend: DL=Delta Airlines, EK=Emirates Airline, EY=Etihad Airways. QF=Qantas Airways. QR=Qatar Airways,
                                          SQ=Singapore Airlines, UA=United Airlines

4.2. The full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services flight stage lengths

        The flight stage length distances for the world’s current full-service network carriers ultra-long-
range services are presented in Figure 3. A flight stage length is the typical length of an air route between
two airports over which an aircraft is flown (Vogel, 2016, p.82). As can be seen in the figure, the top ten
ultra-long-haul routes all exceed 13,400 kilometres in length. The two longest routes exceed 14,400
kilometres in length (Fig. 3) with the shortest route being the Emirates Airline Dubai/Los Angeles/Dubai
service at 13,420 kilometres (Fig. 3). Figure 3 indicates the norm-referenced scores for each of the city
pairs, and it can be observed that all of the scores fall within the +/- 2 band, indicating that the distances
are randomly distributed, such that there are no extreme differences between the distances flown.

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            Figure 3. The distribution of aircraft type on the full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services

4.3. Comparison of the full-service network carrier aircraft deployment on ultra-long-range
     services

4.3.1.   The candidate aircraft for ultra-long-range services: a brief overview
        The Boeing 777 is a long range, twin-engine aircraft (Kumar, 2016). Boeing Commercial
Airplanes only built 59 Boeing 777-200LR aircraft between 2006 and 2013 (Flight International, 2015).
These aircraft have been deployed on niche ultra-long-range services that only comprise a few percent of
the world’s airline route networks (Leeham News and Comment, 2013). The Boeing B777-300ER can
seat 396 passengers in a two-class seating configuration. The aircraft has a maximum range of 7,370
nautical miles (13,649 km) (Boeing Commercial Airplanes, 2018).
        The Boeing 787 family includes the 787-8, 787-9 and the 787-10 models. The 787-8 entered
commercial service in October 2011 with Japan-based All Nippon Airlines (Norris, 2015). The aircraft
has a range of up to 7,850 nautical miles. The B787-9 entered commercial service in 2014 (Aircraft
Commerce, 2016b). The Boeing B787 is a mid-sized aircraft, seating between 220-280 passengers,
depending upon the operating airlines preferred seating configuration (Aircraft Commerce, 2012, 2016c).
The Boeing B787-9 is slightly larger than the -8 variant and will typically have around 280 seats when
operated in a three class (first, business, economy) cabin configuration. The B787-10 is the largest variant
of the B787 family (Aircraft Commerce, 2014). The Boeing 787-10 entered commerce service with
Singapore Airlines in May 2018 (Singapore Airlines, 2018b).
        The Boeing 787 has been marketed to airlines as being an ideal platform for airlines to operate
new routes and origin-destination (O&Ds) opportunities on longer-haul sectors that cannot sustain large
widebody aircraft operations. These routes may include new point-to-point services between secondary
cities. This can be achieved as the B787s unit costs per available seat mile or kilometres are comparable
with larger aircraft, thus making routes with lower levels of demand economically viable (Aircraft
Commerce, 2016a). Due to the Boeing 787’s long-range capability, the aircraft is capable of connecting
almost any two airports in the world, with few operating and performance restrictions. The extensive
long-haul capability provides operators with significant and valuable flexibility in planning their route
network and flight schedules.
        When Boeing committed to developing the 7E7 (now the B787), Airbus launched the Airbus
A350, which was derived from the Airbus A330-200/-300 aircraft, in response (Aircraft Commerce,
2005; Qui, 2005). The Airbus A350 was therefore based on the same fuselage and fuel capacity as the
A330-200/-300. The principal difference between the A350 and the A330 was the use of carbon fibre in
the A350’s wing structure and the A350 used the General Electric (GE) (GENX) engines (Qui, 2005).
The aircraft entered commercial service with Qatar Airways on the 15th January 2015 (Kingsley-Jones,
2015).
        The Airbus A350-900XWB (extra widebody) is being offered as an aircraft with a range of 8,500
nautical miles, with a nominal 270 seating configuration (Wall, 2006; Wall and Mecham, 2006). The
range and seating capabilities of these two aircraft types enables them to operate most origin and
destination (O&Ds) or city-pairs on a non-stop basis (Qui, 2005). The Airbus A350-900XWB standard

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tri-class cabin configuration and seating capacity places it in direct competition against the Boeing B777-
200 ER and the Boeing B787-10 aircraft (Aircraft Commerce, 2006).
        The origins of the Airbus A380 aircraft date back to 1988, when the initial interest in the Airbus
ultra-high capacity aircraft first occurred (Flight International, 2005). The Airbus A380 aircraft program
was formally launched on 19 December 2000 (Kingsley-Jones, 2005). The Airbus A380 was designed to
operate on both existing and probable future high-density routes that were predominantly operated by the
Boeing B747-400 aircraft. These routes included Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo to Europe and
the United States (Aircraft Commerce, 2002).
        The first flight of the Airbus A380 aircraft took place on the 27th April 2005 (Pilling, 2005). On
October 15, 2007 the first Airbus A380-800 aircraft was delivered to Singapore Airlines. Singapore
airlines commenced Airbus A380 commercial operations on 25 October 2007, when it commenced daily
Airbus A380 flights between Singapore and Sydney (Kingsley-Jones, 2007, 2008). There are two engine
families offered for the Airbus A380. These are the Engine Alliance GP7200 series and the Rolls Royce
Trent 900 series engines. The Airbus A380-841 comes equipped with the Rolls Royce Trent 970 engines,
whilst the A380-861 has the Engine Alliance GP7270 engines (Aircraft Commerce, 2015). The aircraft
has a maximum range of 15,200 kilometres and a maximum take-off weight of 575 tonnes.

4.3.2.   The full-service network carrier’s fleet deployment on ultra-long-range services
        Figure 4 shows the breakdown of the aircraft types that have been deployed by the full-service
network carriers on their ultra-long-range services. The most popular aircraft is the Boeing 787-9 (37%),
followed by the Airbus A380-800 (27%), and the Boeing B777-200LR (18%) (Fig. 4). Despite the ability
of the Airbus A350-900XWB to operate ultra-long-range services only Singapore Airlines has deployed
this aircraft type on the ultra-long-range Singapore to San Francisco air route. Despite the long-range
capability of the Boeing B777-300ER, Etihad Airways was the only case airline operating this aircraft
type on its ultra-long-range flight from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles (Fig. 4).
        Figure 5 shows the distribution of various aircraft features of each of the 5 regional pairs within
the ultra-long-range market. The first of these is the distribution of aircraft manufacturer; a Fisher exact
test of this distribution suggests that there is no association between regional pair and aircraft
manufacturer (p-value = 0.655). Similarly, for the number of engines, the resultant Fisher exact test shows
no association between the regional pair and the number of engines utilised (p-value = 0.479), which
historically would have seen an association; however, extended operations (ETOPS) has seen the growth
in range of modern twin engine aircraft, displacing the Airbus A340-500 and B747-400ER aircraft types.

            Figure 4. The distribution of aircraft type on the full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services

       To analyse the relationship between aircraft manufacturer and both sector length and ASKs, a
Mann Whitney U test was utilised. The relationship with regional pair and aircraft was previously
assessed using a Fisher exact test, so it would be reasonable to assume the Mann Whitney U test would
highlight a similar result. This was noted (p-value = 0.18), for the ranking of distances was independent
of the aircraft manufacturer; that is, the median distance for Airbus and Boeing aircraft were similar.
However, for ASKs (p-value = 0.026), the ranking of ASKs was dependent on the manufacturer, with the
median ASKs of Airbus aircraft being greater than the median ASKs for Boeing aircraft.

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a)                                                                 b)
              Figure 5. Distribution of aircraft features by region pairs, a) aircraft manufacture and b) number of engines

4.4. Comparison of the full-service network carrier cabin classes on ULR services
        Table 2 compares the travel classes operated by those full-service network carriers operating ultra-
long-range air services. Of the seven full-service network carriers operating ultra-long-range services,
only Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways offered a first-class product (Table 2). However, all the
airlines offered a business class product and an economy class product. Delta Airlines, Qantas Airways,
Singapore Airlines and United Airlines all offered a premium economy product on their ultra-long-haul
services (Table 2). As previously noted, airlines have historically segmented the air travel market into the
premium and leisure market segments. As Table 2 shows, the seven airlines currently operating the
world’s longest ultra-long-range services (ULR), offer both premium and leisure travel classes on these
services.
        Significant differences in aircraft interiors are observed relative to the regional pairs the aircraft
are utilised to service (Fig. 6). First, with the availability of the first-class cabin, it is noted that the
resultant Fisher exact test shows an association (p-value = 0.023), with the cabin being more commonly
associated with flights to and from the Middle East. Similarly, for the availability of premium economy,
there is also an association to the regional pair (p-value < 0.001), where all flights servicing the Middle
East do not have premium economy, and the other regional pairs provide premium economy.

Table 2. Comparison of the cabin classes offered by the full-service network carriers on ULR services
             Airline                  First Class          Business Class             Premium Economy                 Economy Class
     Delta Airlines                                                                                                      
     Emirates Airline                                                                                                    
     Etihad Airways                                                                                                       
     Qantas Airways A380                                                                                                
     Qantas Airways B789                                                                                                 
     Qatar Airways                                                                                                        
     Singapore Airlines                                                                                                  
     United Airlines                                                                                                     

a)                                                                 b)
     Figure 6. Distribution of aircraft interior by region pairs, a) first class cabin availability and b) premium economy availability

4.5. An assessment of the available seat kilometres (ASKs) performed on ULR services
       The most common measure of an airline’s output is the available seat kilometres (ASKs) or
available seat miles (ASMs) (Gillen, 2017). ASKs are used as a measure of available passenger capacity

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(Heshmati and Kim, 2016). Available seat kilometres (ASKs) are the total number of seats offered on a
flight multiplied by the stage length flown (O'Connell and Williams, 2016).
        Figure 7 shows the three largest sources of available seat kilometres (ASKs) on the top ten ultra-
long-range air routes are those on which the large capacity Airbus A380-800 aircraft is deployed (Fig. 7).
This is followed by the Delta Airlines Atlanta/Johannesburg/Atlanta service. The Delta Airlines Boeing
777-200LR has a higher seating than that offered by Qatar Airways Boeing B777-200LR seating
configuration, and hence, this contributed to the larger volume of ASKs produced by Delta Airlines. As
expected, there is a strong correlation between the seating capacity and the ASKs. This is illustrated in
Figure 8, which shows the parametric (Pearson’s) and non-parametric (Spearman’s) correlation between
aircraft seats and ASKs, both of which are statistically significant (p-value < 0.001).

          Figure 7. The distribution of available seat kilometres on the full-service network carriers ultra-long-range services

 a)                                                                 b)
      Figure 8. The correlation between a) total aircraft seats and available seat kilometres (ASKs) using the Pearson Correlation
                Coefficient, and between b) the relative rankings of these using the Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient

5. Conclusions

        This paper has examined, for the first time, the aircraft deployment, the target passenger market
segments, the flight stage lengths and the available seat kilometres produced on the top ten ultra-long-
range air routes. Despite the increasing trend in airlines commencing ultra-long-range air services, there
has been very limited research undertaken on such initiatives. Thus, this study adds some valuable
insights to the literature. The study was underpinned by a case study research framework that followed
the recommendations of Yin (2018). The study found that the most popular aircraft deployed on the top
ten air routes is the Boeing 787-9, followed by the Airbus A380-800, and the Boeing B777-200LR.
Despite the long-range capability of the Airbus A350-900XWB, only Singapore Airlines has deployed
this aircraft on an ultra-long-range service at the time of the present study. Etihad Airways was the only

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airline deploying a Boeing B777-300ER on an ultra-long-range air route (Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles and
return).
        The Qantas Airways Sydney to Dallas Fort Worth Airbus A380-800 service and the Qantas
Boeing 787-9 service from Perth to London are operated on a hub-to-hub basis, The Sydney to Dallas
Fort Worth service links up with fellow oneworld alliance partner American Airlines as does the Perth to
London service link up with fellow oneworld alliance partners operating at London Heathrow Airport.
United Airlines and Singapore Airlines, both key members of the Star global alliance, have pursued a
similar strategy in that both airlines operate their ultra-long-range services from the key hubs of Houston,
Los Angeles, San Francisco and Singapore. The hub-to-hub services enhances the available travel options
for passengers whilst at the same time optimizing the revenue generated on the ultra-long-range services.
In contrast, the Delta Airlines service from Atlanta to Johannesburg, Emirates Airline Dubai to Los
Angeles and return, the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles, the Qatar Airways Doha to Auckland
and return, are examples of point-to-point services that have linked up new peripheral or spoke cities. The
addition of a spoke city to their route networks strengthens these airlines product offerings.
        The target market segments for the airlines operating ultra-long-range services is the premium and
leisure air travel markets. Emirates Airline and Qantas Airways are the only carriers offering a first-class
product targeted at the premium passenger market. The case airlines all offered a business class product
offering, and Delta Airlines, Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines, and United Airlines offer a premium
economy product on their ultra-long-range services. An economy class product was offered by all the
airlines examined in the study. Economy class is primarily targeted at leisure travellers.
        The Qatar Airways Boeing B777-200LR service from Doha to Auckland has the longest flight
stage length at 14,535 kilometres and this is slightly longer than the Boeing 787-9 service operated by
Qantas Airways from Perth to London, which has a flight stage length of 14,499 kilometres. The shortest
flight stage length was the Emirates Airline Airbus A380 service from Dubai to Los Angeles (13,420
kilometres).
        The greatest number of ASKs are produced annually on the Emirates Airline Airbus A380-800
service from Dubai to Auckland and return (5.09 billion ASKs), followed by the Qantas Airways Airbus
A380-800 service from Sydney to Dallas Forth Worth (4.87 billion ASKs) and the Emirates Airlines
Airbus A380-800 service from Dubai to Los Angeles and return (4.81 billion ASKs). The Etihad Airways
Boeing B777-300ER service from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles and return generates 3.25 billion ASKs
annually. The Boeing B777-200LR services operated by Delta Airlines from Atlanta to Johannesburg will
generate an annual total of 2.88 billion ASKs. This is slightly greater than the 2.74 billion ASKs
generated annually by Qatar Airways Boeing B777-200LR services from Doha to Auckland and return.
United States-based United Airlines operates three ultra-long-range air routes with its fleet of Boeing
787-9 aircraft. The United Airlines Los Angeles to Singapore and return, Houston to Sydney and return,
and San Francisco will produce 2.59 billion ASKs, 2.54 billion ASKs, and 2.50 billion ASKs,
respectively. The Qantas Airways Boeing 787-9 service operated from Perth to London produces the
smallest annual number of ASKs (2.49 billion ASKs). The ASKs generated on an air route are influenced
by the aircraft size and flight stage length.
        A limitation of the current study was that key business performance metric of revenue passenger
kilometres performed (RPKs) for these services were not available in the public domain. Should these
data become available then a future study could compare the ASKs and RPKs to identify how successful
airlines have been in optimising their passenger traffic on their ultra-long-range services. The study could
also examine if there are directional differences in the RPKs generated by class of travel.

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