A Look At The World’s New 3rd Longest Airbus A320 Route

Summary

• Uzbekistan Airways has launched the world’s third-longest Airbus A320 route by distance.
• It is from Tashkent to London Gatwick and covers 3,273 miles (5,267 km) each way.
• The longest scheduled service is from Moscow Domodedovo to Blagoveshchensk (easy for you to say) in the Russian Far East.

The A320 operates more flights than any other aircraft type. The ubiquitous – boring, even – narrowbody is used on about one in four services between April and September, based on examining all schedules using Cirium data. Unsurprisingly, it gets little attention for routes. However, it is worth shouting about when a new and unusually long one materializes, just as it has now.

The new third-longest A320 route

On April 7, 2024, Uzbekistan Airways – that little-discussed operator – inaugurated a brand-new route from the Uzbek capital of Tashkent to London Gatwick. It is one of 20+ new and returning airlines to join Gatwick’s ranks since 2022.

Operated weekly (!), the 3,273-mile (5,267 km) airport pair is more than four times the length of the A320’s average flight. The first roundtrip used the appropriately registered UK32021, as shown above, a 5.1-year-old A320neo that was delivered to the carrier in March 2019, based on ch-aviation data.

Flightadar24
shows that the first inbound flight to Gatwick had a whopping flight time of 7h 38m, virtually the same duration as the block time. Helped by a tailwind, the return leg only took 6h 19m.

Most of Uzbekistan Airways’ A320neos only have 150 seats, with 138 in economy and 12 in business. This is the standard configuration for a two-class operator and helps to increase the range versus heavier and higher-density versions. According to Sean Moulton, who was on the first flight, the inbound to Gatwick had a seat load factor of 74%, but it was only about 33% going back. Ouch.

London-Tashkent is not a big market. In 2023, it only had about 47,000 roundtrip point-to-point passengers (129 daily). Many passengers connected in Istanbul, with Moscow out of bounds due to sanctions. A limited number of Uzbekistan Airways passengers also transferred elsewhere via Tashkent.

The once-weekly flight

The schedule is as follows, with all times local. It coexists with Uzbekistan Airways’ twice-weekly service to London Heathrow. It makes no sense economically to serve two airports with such low frequencies, increasing costs, marketing challenges, and complexity. It is because of Heathrow’s lack of slots.

• Tashkent-Gatwick: HY203, 10:55-14:35 (7h 40m block)
• Gatwick-Tashkent: HY204, 16:10-03:00+1 (6h 40m)

While equipment substitutions occur, Uzbekistan Airways’ Heathrow operation is down to use the A320neo (83% of April-September flights) and A321neo (17%). It has a similar schedule to Gatwick, showing that it couldn’t obtain another slot pair at the relevant time.

Subject to availability, the cheapest way to increase capacity would be to use its A321neos or Boeing 787s to Heathrow, at least in the peak season. But this would not help with its apparent desire for higher frequencies and, in this sense, more competitiveness.

It is not quite as long as…

While Gatwick-Tashkent is undeniably long, it does not exceed the following two airport pairs by distance. This is based on examining all scheduled A320 flights between April and September using Cirum and OAG data.

While the longest airport pair is exclusively on the A320neo, the second isn’t.

• 3,492 miles (5,620 km): Moscow Domodedovo-Blagoveshchensk (S7 Airlines and Ural Airlines A320neo); max block of 8h 10m
• 3,278 miles (5,275 km): Tashkent-London Heathrow (Uzbekistan Airways A320neo); max block of 7h 40m, the same as Gatwick

What is the longest A320 flight you’ve been on? Let us know in the comment section.