New Record: Around The World In 52hr34min

Go get'em Lucky!

Fly it in coach then attempt the record once more

Lucky just wait until SQ relaunches SQ21/22 and do this as a direct return.

If they will use the historic schedule it should take 2x19h + 5h in EWR = 42h for the RTW and since both SQ21 and 22 flies westwards this should count as a RTW

Kevin- you won't cross the equator if you fly EWR-SIN-EWR. That's the whole point of the rule about antipodal points- to prevent only flying polar routes which cut the distance.

I'd approach this by listing first all the antipodal major airport pairs so that there are longhaul flights from both airports of each pair. That can't be too long list.

Not fully understanding the requirements. For example why wouldn’t LAX-DOH-AKL-LAX count?

This map is a bit confusing but makes sense once you figure it out- blue is one orientation, yellow is opposite orientation, so you can see each places' antipode.

Interesting ones (seemingly close enough for this)

Honolulu-Johannesburg
Taipei- Rio
Singapore- Ecuador/Colombia

You can see why everyone uses China (antipode Argentina/Chile) and New Zealand (antipode in southern Spain)- most of the northern hemisphere has an anitpode in the middle of the ocean, and Australia's antipode is dead center in the north Atlantic.

The key is cover these "antipodal airports". That means that they have to on exact opposite sides of the globe. LAX, DOH and AKL are not. Then for example PVG and EZE are. I'm quite sure there aren't many "pairs" that qualify for the requirement...

LAX-PPT-TYO-ORD-LAX won't work because NRT-ORD flies east, right? https://goo.gl/flights/EdgpP

And here's an eccentric routing (LAX-NAN-HKG-TLV-LAX) but its a couple hour longer than Andrew's.... https://goo.gl/flights/nqQ6d

New York and Perth are close enough to antipodes. So you could do JFK-(DOH, DXB)-PER-SYD-(LAX, SFO)-JFK

@Corey
They are not, it has to be with in 5 degrees.

Lax-mad-dxb-akl-lax is close

The world has six continents with scheduled commercial flights. This is not around the world. Never touched any part of North America or Africa. Fruitless and meritless record…

I think one should have to have feet on the ground on every continent at least once.

@Geography matters - it seems to me like "starts at one place, goes to the place at the exact opposite site of the world, returns to first place" (which is what the antipodes rule requires) is a pretty reasonable definition of going around the world. It's not the only possible one, but your rule wouldn't even require completing a circle of the earth, if you flew from, say, Australia to Asia to Africa to Europe to North America to South America. Getting to all six continents as quickly as possible might be another interesting challenge, but it's not clear to me why that's a better definition of around the world than the one in use here. The classic Verne novel "Around the World in Eighty Days," perhaps the most famous literary account of a a competition involving traveling around the world, has Phileas Fogg skip South America and Australia entirely (indeed, he merely crosses every meridian, which air travel makes a rather uninteresting proposition given the ease of traveling over the Arctic, which is, of course, not true if traveling by sea and land).

@Geography matters - What in the phrase “around the world” remotely suggests a required stop on each continent with commercial air service? I’m sure there is a separate record for what you’re interest in. That does not render this record “meritless.”

normally id find this somewhat amusing but theres something about this that is quite vapid, wasteful, and too 1st world. Actually just annoying. As one poster said, fly it without a company ID (ie, coach)

BDA/PER is a fun pair, but I couldn't find an efficient routing. LIH/WDH is also fun, but same deal.

I agree with Steve.

So is this blog about premium flight reviews and credit cards anymore?

There are just not that many antipodal airport pairs within this 5 degrees rule that can work efficiently. PVG/EZE are by far the best that allow long distance legs in and out. Another one I could find is SCL and Xi'an, or WLG and MAD, but long distance legs out Xi'an and WLG are very limited. So I think Lucky you have to stick with EZE and PVG and see if it can be done faster via other intermediary points.

@Lucky, instead of the beating the antipodal world record, why not try the 6 continents? I think that makes the challenge more interesting.

Great challenge. I guess one will have to leave the US out of this as the US is not yet able to provide efficient sterile transits.
I hope at some point they will also figure out how to streamline the transit process.

@Nathan Gillian @Steve
I think this blog is about whatever Lucky wants it to be about. If you don't like it ...

try it in coach and ill be impressed

Definitely not an astrophysicist here, but I think Earth is slightly wider at the equator than at the poles (aka it’s not actually a perfect sphere). So a route that goes North/South similar to the one Andrew Fisher did might be shorter than one that spent more time going around the equator (such as a route through the Middle East). Looking at my globe, the western edge of Europe, Japan/Korea, and New Zealand form a nice antipodal line, so that may be the shortest way. Boston/New York and Perth are not too far off antipodal, so maybe that could work with the LHR-PER route. But the jet stream and timing of flights probably have the biggest impact. We'd definitely cheer you on though!

Scratch that. I misunderstood truly antipodal. This is a lot more restrictive than I thought. Looks like PVG and EZE are the best option.

Not antipodal per se, but perhaps faster? https://www.overthepoles2018.com/

try la to tel aviv to hong kong or shanghai or beijing to aukland or even straight to la skipping australia and back

syd/dfw/auh/syd starting 19 feb is blocked for 53 hours but auh/syd is usually an hour early.

syd and dfw are 33 degrees south and north.

but doesn't comply with antipode requirement but frankly that is ridiculous - that route sticks to the fat part of the planet and won't go "over the top" (?). and even if it did, how's that not circumnavigation?

I don't think I understand why LAX-DXB-AKL-LAX doesn't work...

@ Ben W -- Because none of the airports are antipodal (meaning that two airports you stop at are almost at exactly opposite ends of the earth).