The world's longest commercial flight

By CHRIS DANIELS

Latest techniques for torturing people while still keeping within the letter of international law use what are known as stress positions.

Prisoners are kept in uncomfortable positions for extended periods, deprived of sleep and subjected to noise in an attempt to break their spirits.

Economy class air travel meets many of these criteria: permanently bent knees, poor food, bad air, dry throat, inability to get to the toilet, ghastly noises, sleep deprivation and general malaise.

So how about an invitation to fly economy on the longest commercial flight ever - 18 long hours in Singapore Airlines' new nonstop, record-breaking flight between Singapore and New York, now running as a scheduled service?

It sounds crazy, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

After a pleasant celebratory cocktail function at the gate lounge, we take off as normal, but as soon as we level out the guy next to me, Jerome, goes to sleep.

I know his name, having introduced myself before take off, because it seems weird to sit next to a stranger for almost a whole day. Much good it's done me.

So here I am, cloud covering anything worth seeing out the window, my neighbour asleep and the seat of the woman in front fully reclined. This is looking like a long, long, 18 hours.

But Singapore Airlines has configured the plane especially for super-long-haul travel, with only half as many seats as a standard Airbus A340-500. The extra space is taken up mostly by bigger seats and more leg room.

It is in the new executive economy class (where I am flying) that you notice the difference. Seats are arranged in a 2-3-2 format usually seen only in business class.

This cuts down on the number of people stuck in the middle of the plane, those poor souls unable to get out without clambering over neighbours when they want to go to the toilet, trapped far from the drinks trolley.

There are also small areas set aside for passengers to mingle and exercise away from their seats. They are not huge - just a few square metres - but importantly they are not in front of the toilets or the galleys. That allows passengers to perform a sort of aerial ballet without the risk of tripping up a crew member with a cup of tea or a desperate passenger racing to the toilet.

It is an odd situation, though, 10km up in the air, hurtling above the Bering Sea at 1000km/h, standing with a group of strangers, all doing personalised, improvised versions of deep vein thrombosis-busting exercises, standing on tippy-toes, stretching calf muscles and Achilles tendons.

Naturally the main topic of conversation is the flight.

Like a good reporter, I am keeping a diary, a personal journal of my 18-hour, world-record-busting flight.

I expect it to document the slow journey into air travel madness, from excited kid at take-off, through the surly and tired middle hours, detouring into a crippled with boredom headache, before arriving at full blown, clawing-the-walls, let-me-outta-here panic attack.

Alas, no such journey into the heart of darkness. My log instead reads like a copy of TV Guide.

Will and Grace; PC interactive version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (verdict: I'm still poor); Viva Las Vegas (verdict: very cool); Nintendo Tennis (verdict: way too hard, could only win one game); Frasier; a documentary about whether Neanderthals could talk; 50 First Dates; That 70s Show; a documentary about whether it is possible to travel through time (verdict: couldn't understand most of it, so not really sure); read some of a thriller (verdict: junk, better off watching TV); a documentary about whether Troy was real; a few more movies.

Obviously one of the big factors in surviving super-long-haul travel is the quality of the entertainment on offer.

Rather than a procession of family-friendly moves - Twister, Jumanji, etc - a long-haul passenger needs variety, some music, some TV, some games, some documentaries, some movies.

This entertainment menu looks sufficient to see me through the 18 hours to New York and the 18 hours back to Singapore, though, to be honest, after another 18-hour flight with the same schedule I think I would be scraping the bottom of the entertainment barrel, or scraping the walls.

Fortunately there's also the food breaks. Meals are always welcome on a long flight, even if you don't feel hungry, because they offer a diversion. And this food is fantastic.

My favourite on this flight was perfectly cooked lamb shanks. How do they produce such great food in such a tiny galley? Why isn't all airline food as good as Singapore's?

Sounds like a good conversation-opener at the passenger mingling area. But if I go there I probably won't be able to resist the tasty snacks on offer and I really, really have had enough to eat.

So what now? Maybe a bit of tai chi. Or another go at the tennis - I think I might just have cracked the technique - but suddenly, amazingly, the flight is over, New York is below and I have survived.

Landing in Newark is the first time I have been in a plane when all the passengers start clapping on landing. Perhaps the airline executives on board know how low the fuel gauge is. More likely we are just grateful to have got here in such good shape.

The plane is even treated to a welcoming water shower from Newark Airport's fire rescue truck.

While not every flight will get this sort of celebrity welcome, the trend towards super-long-haul travel is spreading.

Our own Air New Zealand has signalled that it, too, is in for the long haul, with a likelihood of new routes and greater frequencies, in smaller planes travelling longer distances.

New, more fuel-efficient aircraft such as the new Boeing 777s will allow Air New Zealand it to start flying over congested hub airports, taking passenger to the cities they want to go to, rather than sitting around in transit lounges.

So forget your fears. With some nice food, pleasant flight attendants, a bit more space and a few movies, you too can sit around in the same plane for nearly a full day and arrive at your destination still alive and still sane ... . I think.

Now all I've got to do is get home.

* The daily service leaves Singapore at 12:05, arriving at New York (Newark airport - about 35 minutes' drive from Manhattan) at 18:30 local time.

* It flies 16,600km there and 16,600 back - the longest non-stop commercial flight in the world, beating the airline's existing service to Los Angeles by nearly 2000km.

* On the way to the United States, it flies over the North Pacific, across Alaska and Canada, then down to the east coast of North America. On the way back, it flies across the Atlantic, Europe, Central Asia and India, down to Singapore. During the Northern Hemisphere summer, from about May to August, some of the return flights to Singapore may fly across the North Pole, heading back to Singapore across the Pacific.

* The aircraft, a four-engined Airbus A340-500, has 181 seats, with 64 in Raffles (business class) and 117 in executive economy. Seat pitch is 162cm in business and 93cm in economy. By comparison, seat pitch in Air NZ's 747 jets is 142cm in business and 86cm in economy.

* There are 14 cabin crew and four pilots. Crew-to-passenger ratios are higher than on other Singapore Airlines flights.

* Crew get four to five hours' sleep on the flight. They have sleeping quarters at the back of the aircraft, underneath the main passenger deck.

* Inflight entertainment has more than 400 entertainment options, including 60 movies. All are available on demand.

* Chris Daniels flew as a guest of Singapore Airlines.