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The shortest distance between two points on the earth is a straight line, but it it may not be the fastest. When Singapore Airlines relaunched its Singapore-New York flights last week, the route retook the title of world’s longest flight by distance. With a block time of 18 hours 45 minutes SQ21 from New York to Singapore is also the longest scheduled flight in the world. But strong high altitude winds have shortened flight times substantially this week for both flight legs, even while the flights are flying farther than the Great circle route. We’ve run the numbers to see just how much winds are helping reduce flights times and Singapore Airlines’ fuel bills.