One-stop flights can be different and intriguing. This does not just apply to services that cover a huge amount of distance, such as China Eastern’s brand-new operation from Shanghai Pudong to Buenos Aires via Auckland that will start in time for Christmas.

They can be unusual in many other respects, including the size of the operating aircraft. Using OAG data to analyze every stopping service scheduled in September indicates that four routes deploy aircraft with at least 450 seats. Unsurprisingly, all use the Airbus A380s.

The World’s 4 Stopping Routes With 450+ Seat Aircraft

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The entries involve Emirates and Qantas. The latter is easy, as all of its A380s have the same 485-seat layout. Emirates is different. According to ch-aviation, its superjumbos have nine different layouts, ranging from 468 seats in a four-class configuration to 615 in a two-class layout.

Some of Emirates’ configs have almost no difference in their overall capacity, even as few as one or two seats. It can be nearly meaningless. Given this, the scheduled number of seats per flight (summarized below) may vary somewhat in real-world operations.

Only 1 Of Emirates’ Entries Uses 4-Class A380s

Emirates has served the New Zealand city of Christchurch since July 2004, with the A340-500, 777-300ER, and A380 all deployed. The double-decker quadjet first appeared in October 2016, with the four-class config flown from March 2023. It continues to be used today.

The 484-seat layout is as follows. On the upper deck are 14 refurbished suites in first (1-2-1, with privacy doors) and 76 lie-flat business seats (1-2-1 Safran SkyLounge). On the main deck are 56 premium economy seats (2-4-2 Recaro PL3530, 40″ pitch) and 338 in economy (3-4-3, Safran Z40; 32″). It has the second-smallest number of economy seats in Emirates’ superjumbo subfleet.

Between July 2004 and July 2005, Emirates’s one-stop A340 service operated from Dubai—the world’s third-busiest airport for long-haul flights—to Christchurch via Melbourne. After that, A340 flights stopped in Sydney until January 2009. Between February 2009 and October 2016, its 777s were flown, with two stops en route, routing Dubai-Bangkok-Sydney-Christchurch. Thereafter, one-stop service via Sydney reemerged, just on the A380.

What 1-Stop Flights Existed 6 Years Ago?

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It is worth briefly returning to September 2019, which was the last September before the world was enormously but temporarily changed due to the coronavirus pandemic. In that month, the four routes mentioned above also used equipment with 450+ seats. Some other links also existed. For example, Corsair’s 747-400s operated Paris Orly-St. Denis-Mauritius and Air France’s 777-300ERs briefly ran Paris CDG-Punta Cana-Santo Domingo.

The most notable one-stop service on large equipment was Qantas between Sydney and New York JFK via Los Angeles, which ended in 2020. Qantas now serves JFK—the US’s top airport for widebody activity—via Auckland on the 236-seat 787-9.

While Singapore Airlines used the A380 between Singapore and JFK via Frankfurt, these flights were then on 441-seat equipment, so they were just short of this article’s size requirement. Its superjumbos now have 471 seats, but they haven’t served the route since 2023.

IATA Code

QF

ICAO Code

QFA

Year Founded

1920