Which Airports And Airlines Fly To All Six Habitable Continents?
Your surprise will be the list!
Traveling from one end to the other can now be done in less than a day thanks to aviation, which has long brought people together. Not all airports and airlines, however, can claim to offer service to all six of the planet’s habitable continents.
Although other cities, like Darwin, had their first flight from South America as a result of a Qantas return from Buenos Aires, the city does not frequently have such flights. Today, we’ll examine which airlines and airports offer service from all six.
Which six continents are inhabited?
We need to establish certain definitions and ground rules first before we can discuss the major issue of the day. North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania are the six continents that are livable. Antarctica is the only continent deemed uninhabitable (even if it does host a contingent of researchers year-round).
Depending on your definition of what constitutes a continent, the list itself may be debatable (geologists and sociologists may have differing views). We shall remain with this classification system because it has been used to classify most of the world’s population.
What regions of the world may we omit?
Due to the distance, there are no flights from airports in Asia (with the exception of the Middle East) to South America. The airline operating flights to Tokyo that comes closest to this is Aeromexico, even though both its hub and nation of origin are considered to be in North America.
Some airlines have in the past run routes that stop in the US on their way from Japan to Brazil.
Larger airports in Oceania’s southeast, which primarily consists of Australia and New Zealand, have only lately begun to offer direct flights to North America, thanks to Air New Zealand’s new route from Auckland to New York and Qantas’ flight from Perth to London Heathrow.
These routes may, however, soon become standard travel routes thanks to the Australian carrier’s Project Sunrise, which is getting closer. Arabian Peninsula
We simply need to look at the Middle East, which is in a good geographic location to accommodate the range of contemporary airliners flying with profitable payloads, to locate airports offering regular services to all six habitable continents.
Through their hubs at Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Doha Hamad Airport, Emirates and Qatar Airways run regular passenger services (DOH).
However, the airlines also manage to fly as far (south)west as Sao Paolo in Brazil and as far east as Auckland in New Zealand, in addition to the obvious destinations in Africa, Asia, and North America. With reasonable easy, this covers all six inhabited continents.
The popularity of these airports over the past few decades is undoubtedly due to their interconnectedness. Those who don’t reside in a city with a big hub or who may reside in a remote area of the planet may find it alluring to be able to travel nonstop from Buenos Aires to Auckland, for instance.
Due to restrictions on flights to South America, no other airport or airlines in Asia offer service to every inhabited continent.
Oceania Airlines in Oceania have long desired to have nonstop links to every continent, especially Europe, despite and mainly because of its position.
As the third-longest flight in the world (after Singapore Airlines’ services to New York JFK and Newark, respectively), Qantas’ connection from Perth to London enabled it to accomplish this in 2018.
This Boeing 787-9 journey, which covered 14,499 kilometers in 17 hours and 45 minutes, is a significant advancement and a success for the Flying Kangaroo.
Qantas confirmed a new Perth-Rome service as its second nonstop route to Europe in the summer of 2022. There is a constant need for rapid flights, and the route has once again performed admirably in its first few months.
When you include Qantas’ flights to Johannesburg and Santiago, it has one flight that connects to three continents in addition to a large number of flights to North America, Asia, and its native Oceania.
As previously mentioned, Project Sunrise will allow for more flights to Europe from places like Sydney and Melbourne, putting European and North American destinations within reach of a single flight. British Airways deserves a special note.
Although the airline does, in fact, fly to all six continents, their route from London to Sydney is interspersed with a brief stopover in Singapore. Because of this, it is the only airline from Europe to even come close to making our list, though it very well may in the future.
N. America
Taking a look at airports expands your options for flights to every inhabited continent. Air New Zealand’s ultra-long-haul flights at Auckland Airport have allowed New York JFK Airport to join this list. While Air NZ is excluded from the list because to its lack of flights to South and Africa, JFK is elevated thanks to its trip to the East Coast.
Additionally, Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) is now listed among the airports with links to all six continents. When arriving at ORD, Ethiopian Airlines’ lone route to Africa makes a stop in Dublin before continuing on to Addis Abeba nonstop. Because of this, we have listed it.
both Europe and Africa
When considering Europe’s largest airport, London Heathrow, just one makes the cut (LHR). Perth, Australia, is the only city on the continent with direct flights to Oceania, as indicated, thanks to aircraft that leave from Perth.
And only Johannesburg Airport (JNB) in Africa has connections to all six continents. Due to its relatively southern yet central location, it is able to fly to Oceania and Africa in addition to the other four continents with less difficulty. LATAM is not included in the list even though it connects South America and Africa (GRU-JNB).
