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Link Photos: Inside Emirates' flight attendant school. Flight attendant students for Emirates pose in the image and uniform classroom at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Polina Sasko, an flight attendant student with Emirates, applies lip liner during a make-up training session at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

YuJung Kwon, a training instructor for Emirates Airline, left, teaches student Solenne Roussei, right, how to apply her make-up during a training session at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Emirates flight attendants learn how to properly apply make up. Photo: Bloomberg

Emirates Airline staff board buses outside the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Aircrew for Emirates shown how to operate an aircraft emergency door, during a training session at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Patricia Walsh, an instructor with Emirates Airline, centre, demonstrates in flight service for business class passengers to a group of economy class cabin crew, during an upgrade course. Photo: Bloomberg

Emirates flight attendants start on a basic annual salary of about 47,000 dirhams ($A12,200), plus hourly flying pay, a fixed monthly cash sum based on their role and competencies, free housing and transport, and an annual payment from a profit- sharing plan. Photo: Bloomberg

Prospective flight attendants for Emirates undergo training from an instructor, centre, in the image and uniform classroom at the Emirates Aviation College. Photo: Bloomberg

Sherry Wryghte, a training instructor with Emirates Airline, stands in the first class cabin section of the company's training facility at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

The atrium of the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Trainee flight attendants for Emirates practice an emergency exit using escape chutes on an Airbus A380 simulator. Photo: Bloomberg

Trainee flight attendants for Emirates practice an emergency exit using escape chutes on an Airbus A380 simulator. Photo: Bloomberg

Emirates needs to boost flight attendant numbers as it increases the number of flights. Photo: Bloomberg

Emirates trainee crew extinguish a fire after a simulated emergency during a training session at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Emergency escape chutes extend from a Boeing B777-300 simluator at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai. Photo: Bloomberg

Aircraft emergency escape chutes extend into the training pool, next to an Emirates Airline simulator. Photo: Bloomberg

Trainee flight attendants for Emirates practice an emergency exit using escape chutes on an Airbus A380 simulator. Photo: Bloomberg

Emirates trainee flight attendants sit in protective clothing during a training session. Photo: Bloomberg

The on board horseshoe bar on an Emirates A380 superjumbo. Photo: Getty Images

A first class seat on the Emirates Airbus A380. Photo: Getty Images

A first class seat on an Emirates Airbus A380 superjumbo. Photo: Getty Images

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An Airbus A380 will touch down in Auckland, New Zealand, on Wednesday after journeying 14,200 kilometres from Dubai, grabbing the title of world's longest scheduled airline flight for Gulf carrier Emirates. The A380 was used for the inaugural flight and will be replaced by Boeing 777s which will fly the Dubai to Auckland route.

Not to be outdone, Qatar Airways will this year offer services to Santiago in Chile, some 225 kilometres further again, as well as its own Auckland route, which by dint of Doha's location west of Dubai will extend the record by 322 kilometres.

See Also Auckland travel guide

The leading Gulf carriers are adding performance-stretching destinations after largely exhausting the potential for new links between the biggest cities. Their desert hubs, located at the confluence of flightpaths between Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, are also drawing in enough transit passengers to deliver the critical mass needed to make once marginal services viable.

"We will not add a city before we have the network to support it," Qatar Airways said in a statement to Bloomberg. "While the title of longest airline flight may move and shift between carriers, only a few airlines are competing in that space. That's where the advantage of our geography comes in."

Thomas Pellegrin, director of the PricewaterhouseCoopers aviation centre in Dubai, said Gulf carriers are scouring the globe for opportunities as the biggest cities within an eight- hour radius become "increasingly saturated" with flights.

PwC calculates that Emirates,Qatar Air and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways already serve all conurbations with a population of 10 million-plus, factoring in code-share deals, and 87 per cent of those with 5 million to 10 million people.

At the same time, their reach extends to only a third of cities with a populace of between 1 million and 5 million. While "the economics are less obvious," those locations also include many of the fastest growing, Pellegrin said.

Emirates's Auckland flight, departed 10:05 am on Tuesday (local time), captures the distance record from the Sydney-Dallas route operated by Australia's Qantas Airways with an Airbus Group SE A380. The Gulf carrier, which ranks as the biggest airline on international routes, is also set to offer the service with the longest duration when it commences operations to Panama City on March 31.

While its outbound Auckland route will take17 hours and 15 minutes and the return just under 16 hours, the Central American service will take 17 hours 35 minutes when flying westbound as it heads into prevailing winds.


See: Airline review: Emirates economy class

Ultra-long-haul routes are also becoming attractive with the lower oil price, since the jets deployed carry fewer passengers than planes used on shorter routes in order to eke out extra mileage, making margins thin. The 10 777-200LRs at Emirates can carry 266 people, compared with more than 350 in the same layout on the 100-plus 777-300ERs that form the backbone of its fleet.

Six of the world's 10 longest routes were already offered by Mideast carriers prior to this week's New Zealand inaugural, though unlike the new flights they serve global cities such as Los Angeles, a destination for Emirates, Qatar Air, Etihad and Saudi Arabian Airlines reachable with the A380 and 777-300ER.

The direct Auckland service, which Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said in January, "has been in our sights for some time," will shave three hours from the current four-times- daily trip via Australia, and link with flights to 39 European cities. Adnan Kazim, Emirates's senior vice president for strategic planning, said in an e-mail that the carrier is able to serve the "maturing market" directly as the arrival of new aircraft frees up 200LRs.

Gulf carriers are also seeking new outlets as they run into roadblocks while targeting expansion in existing markets such as the US, where Delta Air Lines is campaigning for a review of air-service treaties to limit access, and Germany, where the number of destinations and frequencies is strictly limited.

The coming of new airliners such as Boeing's upgraded 777X will further improve performance, making most of the planet reachable from the Gulf beyond 2020. Still, range improvements could also prove a double-edged sword, making routes such as London to Sydney possible for the first time and eliminating the need to change plane or refuel at a hub airport.

Singapore Airlines is meanwhile likely to regain the longest-flight title with the reintroduction of direct services to the New York area once Airbus makes a lighter version of its latest A350-900 plane available in 2018. The Asian carrier once flew the 19-hour, 9500-mile (15,289-kilometre) route using a four-engine Airbus A340-500 with 100 business seats before scrapping the service in 2013 after it proved non-viable, adding about five hours to the journey.

Bloomberg

See also: World's longest flight routes: Non-stop flights from Australia to London get closer

See also: Qantas jumbo haul: flying the world's longest 747 route