The Unusual 36-Hour Around-The-World Boeing 787 Passenger Service

Almost a year has passed since Hainan Airlines began its Beijing Capital-Boston-Brussels-Beijing Capital service. Of course, it's not quite this simple. The flight number changes in Boston, making things more unusual as that no traffic rights exist between Boston and Brussels. So let's examine what's going on with this series of flights for today's video. Historically, many around-the-world passenger flights have operated. More commonplace during the so-called Golden Age of air travel, such flights were on carriers that no longer exist, most famously Pan Am. Even United Airlines did it, including on the Boeing 747-400, such as Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Delhi, London Heathrow, Washington Dulles, Los Angeles. Some high-end charter-type services still exist, but they're extremely rare when it comes to being offered on a scheduled basis. According to Sirium-Dio data, the Chinese carrier known as Hainan Airlines flew to Boston between June 2014 and March 2020, when the pandemic meant it had to stop. Most airlines did as borders closed and nations attempted to control the spread of COVID-19. For obvious reasons, Chinese operators were acutely affected. When flights resumed in November 2023, Hainan avoided Russian airspace en route to or from the United States. It still does, just as many others do. This is partly while the world's new longest non-stop flight is timed at an ungodly 19 hours 20 minutes with Xiamen Airlines, although it remains to be seen if this operates without a technical stop en route. While Hainan operated non-stop to Boston, headwinds and the vast distance meant its Boeing 787-9 flight stopped in Seattle en route back to mainland China. While it obviously did not have traffic rights between Boston and the Washington State Airport, it already flew to Seattle anyway. So now, rather than stopping in Seattle en route back home, Hainan decided to do so in Belgium instead. This is not to collect passengers in the European capital, but simply to refuel and change crew. Boston originating flights cannot collect passengers in Europe. However, Hainan has a separate daily terminator service in Brussels. And so, the three times weekly service Beijing-Boston-Brussels-Beijing operation continues to run on the 292-seat 787-9. This sees more economy seats than its other Dreamliner configs. Interestingly, the Brussels-Beijing leg does not fly over Russia. In contrast, its standalone Beijing-Brussels-Beijing flights do fly over the country. It is believed that US traffic rights are currently contingent on avoiding Russia. Of course, you can see that it is not a true around-the-world passenger operation. It is really just an out-and-back service that happens to circle the globe. In time, Hainan will revert to flying non-stop in both directions. It clearly wants to do so as it will save a lot of money, inconvenience, and complexity while increasing competitiveness. What do you think of this unconventional deployment? Let us know by leaving a comment.