People are confused why the world's longest flight doesn't travel in a straight line

People are flooding to TikTok in bafflement over why the longest flight in the world appears to travel in a curve rather than straight line.

Travelling for a long time on a plane is never going to be an enjoyable experience. Having travelled through three different time zones, flying on multiple planes for a total of over 30 hours myself, I would know.

I may have found it slightly easier if I hadn't needed to change planes, but then again, being on a nonstop journey on the world's longest flight which travels a distance of 9,537 miles is a serious stint to be stuck in a tin metal tube hovering in the air - and could be very anxiety inducing.

Worse still, is if you were on the world's longest flight and tracking the plane on the digital map and it seem like you were taking a completely bizarre and off-track route to your final destination.

People have taken to social media in confusion over why the world's longest flight doesn't appear to travel in a straight line on the tracking map.

imageBROKER/Alamy Stock Photo

A TikToker, who goes by the name Travel With DJ, informed followers the world's longest non-stop commercial flight is from New York City, US to Singapore.

The Singapore Airlines flight takes off from John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport and lands in Singapore Chani Airport.

Flying from Singapore back to New York on the flight is reported as taking a whopping total of 18 hours and 50 minutes, according to Upgraded Points.

Travel With DJ's video shows the flight choosing a 'curved' route opposed to travelling in a straight line.

One user questioned: "Why don't they just fly straight east?"

@travelwithdeejay/TikTok

The post has since amassed over 100,000 likes and thousands of comments, with fellow TikTokers flocking to the video to question why the route is as seemingly off-piste as it appears.

One wrote: "Traveled to Singapore six times and have never seen this route."

"Bro took a world tour," another joked, while a third said: "Pilot had beef with Europe."

However, a final commented: "A lot of you don’t understand geography and that scares me."

Indeed, there is a very simple explanation as to why the flight's route doesn't appear as a straight line.

As detailed by One Monroe Aerospace, most flights travelling from the US to Asia choose 'curved' routes because not only are they safer, but they are also - believe it or not - quicker.

Sam Pollitt/Alamy Stock Photo

The curved routes are safer because they 'hug bodies of land' opposed to flying directly over the Pacific Ocean which allows the planes the easier possibility of conducting an emergency landing.

Curved routes are also quicker than straight routes. Monroe Aerospace explains: "Flat maps are somewhat confusing because the Earth itself isn’t flat. Rather, it’s spherical. As a result, straight routes don’t offer the shortest distance between two locations.

"Whether a commercial airline is flying from the United States to Asia or elsewhere, it will have the fastest and most fuel-efficient flight by performing a curved rout."

Learn something new every day eh?

Topics: Travel, TikTok, Viral, Social Media

Poppy Bilderbeck

Poppy Bilderbeck is a Senior Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from The University of Manchester in 2021 with a First in English Literature and Drama, where alongside her studies she was Editor-in-Chief of The Tab Manchester. Poppy is most comfortable when chatting about all things mental health, is proving a drama degree is far from useless by watching and reviewing as many TV shows and films as possible and is such a crisp fanatic the office has been forced to release them in batches.