This week, the world’s longest A319 route is deep within Russia, with the 3,021-mile service taking up to about six and a half hours. But it is the US that is reigns supreme, helped by American Airlines having more routes in the top-15 than any other airline. The US features nine times in all, led by LATAM Peru’s Lima-Orlando.

2,000-mile-plus A319 routes this week

In the week beginning August 17th, the Airbus A319's average length of haul is 705 miles, based on analyzing schedules from data experts Cirium. However, delve beneath the surface and there's a myriad of relatively long non-stop routes, with 54 airport-pairs over 2,000 miles.

Of course, long-haul narrowbody service has long been contentious, with the perception that it is less comfortable than widebodies, whether that's fair or not. As we shall see, only one A319 route passes the 3,000-mile barrier – the point considered to be long-haul – this week, but the number of relatively long A319 routes is notable.

Ural Airlines A319
Russia's Ural Airlines has expanded at Budapest. This winter, it'll have four-weekly flights from Moscow Zhukovsky, together with weekly service from Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg. Samara will be also be linked non-stop. Photo: Anna Zvereva via Flickr.

The top-15 longest A319 routes

Only one route passes the 3,000-mile barrier this week: Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, to Yekaterinburg. Operating five-weekly, Ural Airlines' 3,021-mile service – longer than Dublin to Boston – has a block time of almost seven hours. Four of the top-15 routes involve Russia, while the US features nine times. All of the following routes are bookable at the time of writing.

  1. Ural Airlines: Khabarovsk to Yekaterinburg, 3,021 miles
  2. Ural Airlines Irkutsk-Krasnodar, 2,924 miles
  3. LATAM Peru: Lima-Orlando International, 2,795 miles
  4. Myanmar Airways International: Dubai-Yangon, 2,684 miles
  5. Ural Airlines: Blagoveschensk-Yekaterinburg, 2,665 miles
  6. Avianca: San Francisco-San Salvador, 2,640 miles
  7. American: Cali-New York JFK, 2,558 miles
  8. American: Bogota-JFK, 2,473 miles
  9. United: Newark-Portland (Oregon), 2,434 miles
  10. Ural Airlines: Krasnoyarsk-Yerevan, 2,419 miles
  11. American and Avianca: Medellin-New York JFK, 2,375 miles
  12. LATAM Peru: Cancun-Lima, 2,367 miles
  13. Delta: Raleigh Durham-Seattle, 2,354 miles
  14. American and Spirit: Fort Lauderdale-Los Angeles, 2,343 miles
  15. American: Dallas Fort Worth-St Maarten, 2,339 miles
World's longest A319 route
The most recent flight on this, the longest A319 route, was August 16th. It had a flight time of six hours and 34 minutes (15 minutes more when taxi time is added) and continued to St Petersburg. Image: RadarBox.com.

Lima to Orlando

The longest A319 route involving the USA is the 2,795-mile link from the Peruvian capital to Floridian airport. All three of LATAM Peru's weekly flights are served by the 144-seat, all-economy A319. ch-aviation.com shows that its A319s have an average age of 12.7 years. While not especially old, they're the oldest type in its fleet.

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LATAM Peru
While you won't have this experience (!), LATAM Peru's Orlando service leaves Lima at 12:00 and arrives in Florida at 19:21 local. Returning, it departs at 01:21 and arrives back at 06:35. Photo: Getty Images.

LATAM began the route in 2015

LATAM Peru began Lima-Orlando six years ago. Since then, two-thirds of flights have been by the type, the rest by the A320 and, to a far lesser degree, the B767-300ER. In 2019, when all three aircraft were used, the route achieved a seat load factor (SLF) of 84%, T-100 data indicates.

Hardly surprisingly, SLF was 93% for the low-capacity A319, against 85% for the A320 and 78% for the B767. This nicely suggests the different factors to consider and balance in determining course performance: demand and how it changes, capacity (the number of seats to fill), SLF, unit revenue, trip cost, and unit cost.

What is the longest A319 route you've flown? Share your experiences in the comments.