Although I failed as an airline pilot, the last type I flew clearly hasn't as United gets to launch it on long-haul services: like between Washington and Toulouse.
That's listed as an 08:15 hour flight and ~ at least when I was flying ~ a reserve of 00:45 minutes and diversion fuel for a 00:30 diversion is also required, in this case for an endurance of some 09:30.
That's largely down to ongoing efficiency gains on the part of turbo-fan jet engines, with a little thrown in by those winglets.
The farthest I flew ~ of an evening ~ would have been Shanghai to Phuket and as I recall that was in the region of six hours beside a diversion that would be Chang Mai or else Bangkok... although it's back in the mists of time. That was pushing it in the smaller A320, which did though have the same fuel capacity am thinking.
So we've all come a long way since then, and not least the Airbus 321 XLR.
Children, can you guess what XLR stands for?
