IATA, ICAO, and IFALPA jointly define any flight scheduled to last over 16 hours as "Ultra Long".
Since 9 November 2020, Singapore Airlines Flights 23 and 24 has been the world's longest active commercial flight, between Singapore and New York JFK airport, covering 15,349 km (9,537 mi; 8,288 nmi) in around 18 hours and 40 minutes, operated by an Airbus A350-900ULR.
While modern jet aircraft travel at faster speeds and cover longer distances, the record for the longest scheduled commercial ultra-long-haul flight route was set in 1943.
The longest range Boeing airliner in service is the 777-200LR, which can cover 17,395 kilometres (9,393 nmi; 10,809 mi) with 301 passengers.
New airliners like the Airbus A330neo, Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 enable economically sustainable nonstop ultra-long-haul operations on thinner routes with fewer demands, because all the previous planes capable of providing nonstop ultra-long-haul services are larger and thus more expensive to operate compared to these planes, which in turn require more tickets to be sold and more demands between both destinations to maintain the profitability of those services.