15h 30min in ECONOMY?? | British Airways LONGEST FLIGHT! | Boeing 787-9 from Tokyo Haneda to London

15h 30min in ECONOMY?? | British Airways LONGEST FLIGHT! | Boeing 787-9 from Tokyo Haneda to London

British Airways longest route connects London and Sydney in a flight time of 21 hours. However, while this is considered a direct route as it directly links the two cities, it is not non-stop. Flight BA16 has a roughly 1 and 1/2 hour layover in Singapore to refuel, recater, and to switch crews. In today’s episode of our flight review series, Brutally Honest, I will take you along the longest non-stop flight British Airways currently offers, clocking in at a whopping 15 hours and 30 minutes with no break in between. And since here at Simply Aviation, we put a focus on economycl class products, we’ll do that flight in coach. 15 and 1/2 hours, the rough equivalent of flying from London to Chicago or Delhi, turning around and flying all the way back to London. I’m excited to bring you along. So, let’s get going. [Music] [Music] Aviation geeks and frequent flyers, welcome to this new episode of our flight review series, Brutally Honest. My name is David and we’re in Tokyo this morning, heading over to Haneda Airport to catch our flight back home to Europe. You probably did not expect British Airways longest non-stop route to be the one to Tokyo, and it hasn’t always been. But since flying over Russia isn’t possible anymore, flights on this route need to take quite the detour. Additionally, the wind is a bit unfavorable today, meaning our flight will be exceptionally long, even beating the longest British Airways non-stop route by great circle distance, which is London to Santiago de Chile. I’m honestly quite surprised I even got a ticket for this flight. This route has intrigued me for a while, but a oneway from Tokyo to my hometown of Vienna is consistently priced at at least €1,360 on British Airways. One way. And that makes sense because flying for so long is exceedingly expensive to the airline. So, their main focus is to serve travelers between London and Tokyo and to deter those wanting to connect onwards with such high prices. Almost €1,400 is way too much for me to fork out on a single video. After all, countless people support our mission to create the most detailed and straightforward flight reviews we can through their own financial contributions. So, naturally, I won’t waste that much money on a single one-way trip. To my utter surprise though, there was an economy class award seat available for this itinerary. Tokyo to Vienna booked using British Airways AIOS. The trick with their frequent travel program is to always use the least amount of miles and the most amount of cash. I ended up paying 43550 for my trip using only 9,750 AOS. This means a little under€10,000 frequent flyer points saved me at least €924.50 and this gives each a an insane value of 9.5 cents. In comparison, most frequent flyer blogs give AIOS a general value of around half a cent to 2 cents each. So getting 9 12 cents out of them is honestly somewhat bizarre. family. Tokyo is served by two airports. There is Narita, which is quite far into the suburbs, but served by a wide variety of international carriers. And then there is Haneda, which is much closer to the city center, but mostly caters to domestic flights and only hosts a select number of international airlines. British Airways is one of them and since early 2020 exclusively flies in and out of Haneda airport. As of July 2025, the airline offers two daily flights, one each aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A351000, which we flew aboard to Dubai back in 2019. In addition to British Airways, their one world partner, Japan Airlines, offers two daily flights as well. Also, one each aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A351000. And Star Alliance member ANA operates a daily trip 77300 ER as well. From Narita Airport, there aren’t any non-stops currently operating to the United Kingdom. But considering how easy it is to reach Hanita Airport, I’d consider this a win. From Hamamat’s Chaw station, it takes me just over 10 minutes to reach my terminal. Terminal 3 is used by international carriers, of course, including British Airways. I’m a particularly big fan of how well-designed this monorail connection is. You exit the train, proceed through the turn style, and then you’re right there in the departure hall. No convoluted walkways and travelers. You’re right where you need to be within minutes. Since I’m at the airport very early, as always, I was done within no time. We’ve got our boarding pass, so let’s head to the gate. Flight 8 to London Heathrow will be ours. Today, Gulf Zulu Bravo Kilo Gulf is operating a 2016built Boeing 787-9. It is one of 42 Dreamlininers in British Airways fleet as of July 2025, consisting of 12-8s, 18-9s, and another 12 of the largest-10s. British Airways is one of just three airlines currently operating all three variants of the Boeing 787. The others being United Airlines and Japan’s All Nippon Airways. We’ve got new reviews Aerolo not because they paid me, but because I have actually used them before the sponsorship, and it worked flawlessly. Thank you to Aerolo for sponsoring this video. And now back to the trip. We’re entering the aircraft through door two with first class and a part of Club World, which is what British Airways business class is called, situated between them. Another section of business class is behind door two, which we’re passing through. And as you can see, these Boeing 787-9s still feature the old seats. When it comes to the 787s, the new club suites so far are only available aboard the -10s, and only a select few -8s. The remaining D-8s and all-9s are slated to be retrofitted in 2026 and 2027. Behind that, six rows of premium economy class featuring older generation Ricaro PL3530 seats. Economy class comes in the Dreamliner standard 333 layout with 127 Ricaro CL3620 seats aboard this aircraft. The cabin looks a bit dated as it was installed when the aircraft was delivered back in 2016. most notably when looking at the if screens as this Tali’s i8000 system wasn’t a topshelf product even back in 2016. I’ll be in 38A for the next 16 hours, a portite window seat. If getting a window seat is important to you, make sure to avoid the 41st row on this plane as it is missing the window. Every Boeing 787 has a row like that. You can clearly see why on the parked one next to us. This is where the fuselage parts are joined together and structurally it did not allow for a window to be placed there. For my part, I always use aerolopa.com to check the seat maps as they have the best ones I’ve come across. So definitely bookmark that website. These older Ricaro CL3620 seats have headrests which are only adaptable in terms of height but have fixed wings. Waiting for us already is a pair of headphones, a pillow with a scratchy single-use cover, as well as a blanket. Being 180 cm tall, the leg room is honestly pretty amazing. Only the hardware box for the entertainment system is a bit bothersome. Older systems like this one come with quite clunky hardware that takes away some space for your feet, and there seem to be two of these for each three seats. Our seatback pocket comes with a handy little extra pocket at the front. And we’ve also got a biffold tray table. The entertainment system comes with a remote control. And there is a USBA port next to it to charge small electronic devices. Above that, the adjustable entertainment touchcreen, which at 9 in is notably smaller than many modern ones. The screens are equipped with a privacy filter which darkens the display when viewed from an angle. Universal power ports are located beneath the seats with two being available per each three seats. In general, I am comfortable, mainly because of that great leg room, but you can tell the cabin’s age. I am not sure the power port is supposed to be tilted like that, but my USB port is broken. As you can see, the tongue must have been ripped out at some point. Adjustable reading lights can be found in the ceiling above, but unfortunately no personal air vents. For now, it’s time to head out and make our way to your doors. This Boeing 787-9 is about to depart for Dalian, a port city in northeastern China. Uh, taking off towards the north. Uh, a little bit of an unusual routting. For obvious reasons, we can’t fly over Russian airspace, so it’s a quite a long flight time, I’m afraid. 15 hours 30 minutes is what we’re looking at. And uh with that long flight time, I’m afraid we are going to be a little bit late into London. My best guess is that somewhere around4 to 5, 4:45 in the afternoon local London time. Due to the widespread delays in maintaining Pretton Whitney’s new geared turbo fan engines, ANA has some of their A321 Neos grounded, waiting for their engines to be fixed. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. What a beautiful morning to fly. You can clearly see Tokyo’s 634 meter sky tree. And over there is the city’s iconic red Tokyo Tower with a rainbow bridge in front. And there is Hanada airport. For the longest time, I believe this airport was added at a later point with all of its reclaimed land similar to Kai or Chubu Centr. But Han actually dates back all the way to the 1930s and existed long before Narita. The big patch of greenery in the middle of the city is the Imperial Palace and the stadium behind is a national stadium built for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Now we’re heading northeast. Not the direction you’d think Europe is from here, but with today’s wind, this is the fastest route possible for us today. We’re starting off our main meal service with a little salty snack and a beverage of choice. British Airways got these sour cream pretzels that are to die for. And since they have their own branded IPA made by Brut, I couldn’t say no to the Speed Bird OG. Cheers. For the main meal service, two choices were offered. Either ginger chicken with rice or vegetarian Japanese curry. I went for the latter. And well, this is not going to win awards for appearance. We’ve got our vegetable curry with white rice and pickled vegetables called fuguinske. It was served alongside a cold bread roll and butter, a salad consisting of daikon, carrot, and soybeans, some kind of sweet cream with strawberry jelly, a pack of crackers, and this ominous slice of manually packaged cheddar cheese, and a 330 ml bottle of Herogate spring water. All in all, this tasted how it looked. It’ll feed you, but I have some comments. So, first, this is quite substantial. You’ve got a bread roll and butter alongside the main dish, a salad and dessert, and even crackers and cheese, which I’ve mentioned in previous videos I particularly enjoy. However, every element of this is totally generic. Hold the Hargate bottle and you couldn’t tell which airline this meal belongs to. There is no branding whatsoever, no character in any way. This made me think of the inflight meals Air France serves in economy which are the polar opposite. From the highquality bread rolls to the French champagne, it just screams France. This meal doesn’t even whisper. It appears that British Airways just went to the first in-flight caterer they found in Tokyo, went with a default option, and asked them to add cheddar. And since they couldn’t find the individually packaged slices in Japan, they cut down a large chunk and packaged it themselves. That’s my only explanation for this oddly packaged slice. But what really gets on my nerves is that they added the fukuins on the rice and heated it up with everything else. Just get a pack of fuku jinske and place it on the side, please. Warm pickled vegetables are disgusting. There is a reason why in every restaurant in Japan, this condiment is added by yourself from a container where it’s room temperature or chilled. This is the Japanese equivalent of adding ketchup and mustard to the plate before putting it in the microwave. So, considering that I’ve always had very enjoyable meals on my British Airways flights, this generic characterless composition leaves me disappointed. Despite the effort of including a wide variety of different items, none of the elements stood out, leaving me full, but really unimpressed. Here’s a little frequent flyer tip. If you want to make somebody else’s life a bit easier, use the plastic bag the blanket came in to collect your trash. That way, the ground crew doesn’t have to rumage through all the pockets and crannies to locate your waste. The lavatories of the Boeing 787 are pretty standard. They come with changing tables and in addition to the hand soap, British Airways also provides air fresheners. While I was on the pot, the crew handed out the classic postmeal tea and coffee. When I asked if I could still get a cup of coffee, they brought it directly to my seat alongside a biscuit. As always, British Airways crews are pretty phenomenal. This is one of the few airlines where I have never encountered a staff member that wasn’t a pleasure to chat with. The person of this flight began working at BA when they still operated the 747100, and she told me that after decades in service with the airline, today is most likely her longest ever non-stop flight. Now, it’s smooth sailing towards Alaska. [Music] Various snacks and beverages were available at all times in the rear galley. This included the classic cap ramen, but also sweet and salty treats as well as a variety of hot and cold beverages. Now that we’ve got ourselves some nibbles and drinks, let’s look for something to watch. British Airways older Dreamlininers still use Tali’s i8000 inflight entertainment system. This hardware platform premiered with the introduction of the Dreamliner back in the first half of the 2010s and has been succeeded by multiple newer generations since. The selection offered in this system is totally all right for an 8-hour flight to New York. I am not sure if everybody would be satisfied with this selection. In addition to movies and TV shows, there are quite a few audio only options given as well, some games, and the system features a dedicated menu for kids. The in-flight mapping application is state-of-the-art, though. The headphones provided are these generic earbuds that do the trick. However, what I failed to mention before, this is the bothersome generation of seats that had the audio port on the inside of the armrests, ensuring it’s poking you in your thigh the entire time. These ports are also frequently broken due to that poor location, but at least that was working for me. The airplane is equipped with in-flight Wi-Fi with different data packages available ranging from 3 to 20 lb. [Music] Got myself some kapar ramen as a midnight snack. Most passengers are asleep right now as it’s pitch black outside and inside. And I’ll probably get some rest after this as well. Around 2 hours before landing, as the sun was rising again, the pre-landing meal was served. For this, only one option was given, which was the stir-fried udon with mushroom, onion, and carrot. It was served alongside an egg salad, a generic pudding, and to drink, I asked for a coffee, and some orange juice. Once again, this meal is lacking any distinctive characteristics. Overall, it was fine, although this time they added pickled ginger called binishoga and once again heated it up with the dish. I personally would go so far as to call heating up Fukuinske and Benishoga a food crime, but when I asked Jet GBT if that was an appropriate term, it told me it is more of a quote culinary misdemeanor. But whatever cheap caterer bridge he always is using in Tokyo, please make them get those condiments in small packs you can place alongside the meal and not add them to the dish. Thank you. As we’re starting our descent into London, let’s briefly recap this journey. British Airways tries their best with the somewhat dated hardware aboarded Dreamliners. Everything you might ask for is there. You’ve got great leg room, power ports, USB ports. The meals are substantial with even things like crackers and cheese being provided. Generous self-service snack bars in the rear galley and a second hot meal before landing. Pillows, blankets, headphones, and personal entertainment screens are at your disposal, too. And the crews are always great. So, overall, there’s nothing essential that’s missing. However, the quality of each individual element is notably lacking. Scratchy single-use covers for pillows are the bane of my existence. Some of the ports break easily. The main meal was eerily generic. The inflet entertainment system isn’t the newest anymore, and the pre-landing meal was also fairly unremarkable. Spending 16 hours on a British Airways plane wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it also wasn’t as good as I hoped. Meaning that if you were to travel between Japan and London, I would recommend to spend a bit more to fly on Japan airlines where many elements are of much higher quality. We have an upcoming video showcasing their contemporary economycl class offering. So, make sure you are subscribed to our channel to not miss that video, too. Or, and that’s an easy one, just transfer somewhere. Nobody’s forcing me to do 16 hours on British Airways. I chose this option because I found it the most interesting to share in a video. But if I were to pick my favorite option between Tokyo and London behind Japan Airlines and ANA, I would likely go with one of the major Asian carriers such as Thai, Singapore Airlines, or Cathy Pacific, which are often more affordable as well. Very warm. Welcome to London. With that, welcome to London. I’ve got one more flight to go and I would be happy if you join me on the transit and connecting flight, but it wasn’t that remarkable, so I wouldn’t blame you if you were heading off to another video at this point. Perfect. Thank you so much. We’re planning into Concord C of terminal 5, which means I have to take a train and a bus to catch my connecting flight as British Airways Vienna flights never switch to terminal 5 and I still have to get over to T3 virtually every time I transit here. The timing was phenomenal, though, and after just 4 minutes, I’m already on the train. 10 minutes in and we’re at Terminal 5’s main building, waiting for the bus to take us over to T3. Half an hour in and we’ve made it to terminal 3, are through security, and already refilling the water bottle. 35 minutes overall from deboarding at terminal 5C to being ready at terminal 3 is a great time for a transfer that complicated. For our last flight over to Vienna, we’re taking this 2000built Airbus A319 registered Gulf Echo Uniform Papa Sierra. During the flight, complimentary bottled water and a chocolate were handed out, marking a departure from the lowcost model they were trying for a while. Other than that, a quiet flight through the dark that I mostly spent sleeping. And after around 24 hours since leaving my hotel in Tokyo, I have touched down back home. If you’re still watching, I just want to say a big thank you for sticking around until the end. 4,000 words into this script and I’m finally ready to call it a day. Whether you are a sponsor of our channel through monthly contributions like all of these legends are a subscriber and regular viewer or were just stopping by for this one video, thank you very much for watching and coming along. If you have any feedback, positive or negative, and requests for airlines or flights for us to try, leave a comment below. Good evening. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video and will join us again on another trip very soon. For now, why not check out this video about Virgin Atlantic’s aging Boeing 787 product that he captured on a recent trip from New York to London. An airline that after all these years is still a pleasure to travel with. [Music]

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15h 30min – the time I spent in Economy Class aboard British Airways’ Boeing 787 from Tokyo to London, making it the airline’s longest non-stop flight, and an experience that was…unique.

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*FLIGHT INFORMATION*
Airline: British Airways
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9
Registration: G-ZBKG / G-EUPS
Flight Time: 15h 30min / 2h 00min
Seat: 38A / 7A
From: Tokyo Haneda
Via: London Heathrow
To: Vienna Schwechat
Date: January 2024

*PRICE BREAKDOWN*
Total Price: 9,750 Avios + EUR 435.50 + EUR 53.00
Total Routing: HND-LHR-VIE
Booked through: British Airways Website
Cost includes: Economy Class Ticket including two checked bag, plus seat reservation on HND-LHR (EUR 53.00)
Booking made: October 2023

*VIDEO BREAKDOWN*
00:00 – Introduction
01:00 – Intro
01:20 – Booking Process
03:55 – The London-Tokyo Route
05:02 – Getting to Haneda Airport
05:35 – Haneda Airport
06:00 – Boarding
07:08 – Get Airalo eSIM Cards for your next trip!
08:51 – Cabin and Seat
12:40 – Taxi and Take Off
15:44 – Lunch Service
19:00 – Inflight
20:11 – Self-Service Snack Bar
20:28 – Inflight Entertainment and WiFi
22:08 – Pre-Landing Mean Service
23:18 – Conclusion
25:06 – Landing
25:57 – Connecting at LHR
26:45 – Flight to Vienna
27:30 – Outro

*COLLABORATION DISCLAIMER*
This video contains a segment sponsored by Airalo promoting their service to buy, receive, and install e-sim cards via a mobile app. The airline was neither involved nor informed about the production of this review. The ticket fare was paid by ourselves.

*ANIMATED MAPS*
Created with: GeoLayers 3 for Adobe After Effects – https://aescripts.com/geolayers/
Map Data by: OpenStreetMap
Compiled with: Map Tiler – https://www.maptiler.com/cloud/geolayers/
Created: June 2025

*GRAPHICS ATTRIBUTION*
Seat Drawing in intro made by Aviation Volume
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*EQUIPMENT INFORMATION*
Cameras used: Canon R6 (Canon 15-35mm F2.6, Canon 24-105mm F4.0, Canon 100-400mm F5.6-8, Canon 35mm F2.0), iPhone 15 Pro Max, DJI Osmo Pocket, GoPro Hero 8 Black
Additional equipment used: GoPro Suction Cup, Rode VideoMic Pro+, Blue Yeti Podcast Microphone, Joby Bendipod, Aputure AL-MC LED Light, Joby GorillaPod 1K, Rode smartLav+, Rode Wireless Go 2

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