Have you been following Andrew Fisher’s attempt to set a new world record by flying around the globe in the shortest time frame on scheduled flights? Fisher is Vice President of Fleet Planning at Etihad Airways and a self-confessed #avgeek. He set off yesterday in his request to smash the current 55-hour record.
Fisher has been planning his record attempt for months and hopes to complete the record in just four sectors – or to you and me, just four flights. The first will take him from Shanghai to Auckland, then onto Buenos Aries and Amsterdam, before heading back to Shanghai.
If all goes to plan, Fisher hopes to end up in the Chinese city on the morning of Tuesday 23rd January to claim his place in the record books. If you’re interested in seeing how Fisher is getting on, then check out his Twitter account at @AndrewFisherNZ to follow all his updates.
The Kiwi airline executive has been working as Etihad’s head of Fleet Planning since 2007 and before then cut his teeth at Air New Zealand. He says he loves studying airline networks and schedules – so if anyone can pull off this feat, then it’s probably Andrew. Not that he has simply rushed into this… apparently, Andrew has longed to carry out this record attempt for over 20 years!
“It’s about time the job was done,” Fisher commented.
“The planning has taken a long time, essentially to ensure the flight timings, routings and transits are kept as tight as possible and there is only a short window of opportunity for this to happen.”
Finally the journey begins!! #theflyingfish pic.twitter.com/AiIcjKcX1g
— Andrew Fisher (@AndrewFisherNZ) January 20, 2018
First leg complete….just landed in Auckland #theflyingfish pic.twitter.com/Hy1E5hDgYu
— Andrew Fisher (@AndrewFisherNZ) January 21, 2018
While this current record attempt is made more complicated by trying to complete the journey in as few sectors as possible, the record for the fastest time to fly around the world on scheduled flights is just 44 hours and 6 minutes.
That record was grabbed by David Springbett from the United Kingdom in 1980 who flew via Los Angeles, London, Bahrain, Singapore, Bangkok, Manila, Tokyo and Honolulu. Wow!
Last week a Norwegian 787 Dreamliner set a new record time for the fastest ever transatlantic flight by a subsonic passenger aircraft on its flights from New York JFK to London Gatwick. The flight took just 5 hours and 13 minutes – shaving three minutes off the previous record held by British Airways.
Here’s hoping Fisher also enjoys the benefits of some strong tailwinds in his record attempt. The very best of luck!
A person that would read this article, #avgeek #me, would also like to know what Guiness’ criteria is. Do you have to travel at least 25k miles in completing the journey, i.e., circumference of the Earth? Mr. Fisher’s record is totally legit. But people say you could plant a stick on the north (or south) pole, walk around it and you’ve just gone around the world. So similarly, could you could pick 3 or 4 northerly cities with direct service and far shorter flights… and providing the connection times are not too far apart, break his record that way? Or, no because there’s a minimum miles traveled requirement?
I won’t sleep until I know the answer! lol