Singapore Airlines Ltd, Asia's fourth-largest carrier, yesterday started the world's longest commercial flight, offering a non-stop, 18-hour service to New York's Newark Airport.

Singapore Airlines' 16,668 kilometre (10,359 miles) flight on a long-range A340-500 aircraft made by Airbus SAS cuts about four hours of traveling time off an existing service that has a stopover in Amsterdam.

The non-stop daily service by Singapore Airlines, which holds the record for the world's longest commercial flight with its 18-hour, 14,762-kilometre trip to Los Angeles from Singapore, is aimed at attracting business and leisure travellers and to compete with Asia's discount carriers.

"We hope that the new direct link between Singapore and New York will generate more business travellers to Singapore and bring in leisure visitors," said Shirley Tan, the Singapore Tourism Board's communications director.

Like other Asian nations, tourist arrivals to Singapore fell last year due to the region's SARS outbreak. US visitors to Singapore, who averaged about 307,000 every year in the past three years, dropped 23.5 per cent to 250,612, Tan said. With a regular non-stop flight, Singapore is hoping to attract more visitors from North America.

Singapore Airlines is facing increasing competition in Asia from discount airlines such as AirAsia Sdn, Valuair Ltd and Tiger Airways.

Air New Zealand Ltd already flies non-stop to San Francisco from Auckland and to Los Angeles from Christchurch.

More airlines are expected to launch similar direct flights on key routes as longer-range aircraft become available, said Don Birch, President of Abacus International Pte, Asia's largest travel and airline ticket sales agent.

"It's just a continuation of the evolution of air travel," Birch said.

The Singapore-New York flights will boost business travel by offering a shorter and direct connection between Southeast Asia's financial hub and the world's biggest commercial cities, he said.

The US is one of Singapore Airlines' most important markets, with 49 flights weekly.

The airline flies to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and has stopped services to Chicago and Las Vegas. Singapore and the US have had an open skies policy for national airlines since reaching an agreement in 2000.

"This non-stop service will enable us to make full use of the open skies agreement with the US since we are not hindered by the traffic right restrictions of countries along the route," said Huang Cheng Eng, Singapore Airlines' executive vice president for marketing.

Singapore Airlines' passenger load factor on the flight last month to Los Angeles was 75 per cent, Huang said, higher than the average load factor last month of 68 per cent on all other flights.

Following the new non-stop flight, Singapore Airlines said it will cease a Singapore-New York service that includes a stopover in Amsterdam. The carrier will increase flights to the Netherlands' commercial capital to daily from four weekly services.

(China Daily 06/29/2004 page11)