Stories from the 9th longest flight in the world

Since I can’t go anywhere due to the coronavirus pandemic, I figured why not tell some of my favorite/most memorable travel stories. Next, my experience on the 9th longest flight in the world:

Just over 8,446 miles traveled. About 17 hours in length. One (1) seat in economy class for the entire trip. That’s what I was facing on December 21, 2018 when I arrived at 7am at San Francisco International Airport for my flight across the Pacific Ocean to Singapore.

You don’t realize how long 17 hours is until you have to stay in one place for 70% of an entire day. At first, I thought that 17 hours was nothing. I mean, it doesn’t sound that long on paper. 1020 minutes. 61200 seconds. Piece of cake, right?

Then, I realized I’ve never done anything for 17 continuous hours. I’ve never slept for 17 straight hours. And not only was this the first time I would do any one thing for this long, I would be doing it while stuck in a chair with 32 inches of seat pitch. Great…

We started boarding the plane at 8:30am. I wouldn’t touch solid ground again for a long time, and when I did, it would be 8pm the next day on the other side of the world. I found seat 56A (a window, thank god) and settled into my home for the next day.

Fortunately, Singapore Airlines knows how to keep their customers entertained and happy. They had over 200 movies and TV shows on the screen. You could walk to the back of the plane and grab just about any item of food you wanted. Plus, they gave you hot towels after you got settled in. 

We pushed back from the gate at SFO right on time at 9am and soon took off. That’s when the reality of how long this flight really is sunk in. I’m from San Francisco, but I go to school in DC. The flight between those two cities is 5 hours. So, if I were to take off from San Francisco, go to DC, not land, fly back to San Francisco, not land again, and finally go back to DC once again, that total flying time would be less than the flight to Singapore.

In terms of movies, the entire Lord of the Rings (extended edition) trilogy is 11.5 hours. You’d still be left with 5.5 hours on the flight to Singapore. However, if you wanted to watch all nine Star Wars movies, you’d have to skip two of them because Star Wars is 22 hours all together.

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that 17 hours in an airplane is a LONG TIME. How did I pass that time you may ask? Well, I watched a lot of movies for the first seven hours, then I slept for a little bit, woke up and found that there was still six hours until we landed in Singapore. I’d been on long flights to Australia and New Zealand before, but wow, this was looooong. 

Finally, though, like the light at the end of the tunnel, we flew over Singapore Harbor and landed at Singapore Changi International Airport. Jesus Christ, I don’t remember what I did the last six hours of the flight. It’s like a fever dream to me. But boy was I glad to see the end of that flight. I like traveling via plane, but sometimes, flights are too long.