United Airlines is upgrading the listening experience on-board. The carrier is introducing a new earbud product in the economy cabin. With United Airlines on a mission under CE Oscar Munoz to improve every aspect of the traveling experience for both well-heeled premium cabin and economy customers, the earbuds distributed in economy have been a focus of United's attention in recent months. The effort was prompted, United said, by feedback from both customers and flight attendants. For the past year, United has been quietly testing a new earbud with better speakers and a silicone in-ear tip with improved noise reduction capabilities in the economy cabins of its Boeing 787 aircraft. The tests went well, and the rollout of the new earbuds in economy on all United flights has begun. <br/>
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SIA launched daily Singapore Changi-San Francisco Airbus A350 XWB services Oct 23, its longest nonstop flights within the Star Alliance member network. The aircraft deployed for the inaugural flight is the sixth recently delivered A350-900 for SIA, out of a total order of 67 aircraft. “Passengers [are] asking for nonstop services to the US,” SIA CE Goh Choon Phong said. SIA also has 7 Rolls-Royce-powered A350 ultra-long-range aircraft on order (out of its 67-strong order book), which is scheduled to relaunch nonstop services from Singapore to New York-JFK and Los Angeles, starting in 2018. Other SIA services include 2X-daily Singapore-San Francisco, with the other flight operating via Hong Kong. It also serves 2X-daily Singapore-Los Angeles, with one flight via Seoul Incheon and one stop in Tokyo Narita. <br/>
Air India has snuck up on its competitors to snatch the title of the world’s longest non-stop flight route. Until earlier this month, the airline’s Delhi to San Francisco route sat second in the table of greatest distances flown by a passenger jet, but then the carrier changed the direction of travel from crossing to the Atlantic to the Pacific, and added 1,400 kilometres onto its route. The eastern route meant that Air India’s Boeing-777 200ER flew 15,300 kilometres, surpassing the previous holder of world’s longest flight, Emirates’ Dubai-Auckland route that clocks up 14,120 kilometres. What’s more, by flying east over the Pacific, Air India took advantage of the 86mph tailwinds of the Jet Stream and knocked 2 hours off its flight time, covering the distance in just 14-and-a-half hours. <br/>