Are there any non-stop flights from Asia to Brazil?

Question

I'm wondering if there is any non-stop flight from Asia to Brazil (for example, Bangkok to Sao Paulo). It's surprising that I couldn't find anything from Asia to Brazil so far, specially now with all the big sport events that will happen there.

Answer 1

Yes.

• Emirates offers nonstop flights from Dubai (which is on the continent of Asia) to both Rio de Janeiro (GIG) and São Paulo (GRU).

• Qatar Airways has nonstop service from Doha to São Paulo.

Near-misses:

• Etihad has announced that it will fly from Abu Dhabi to São Paulo starting in June 2013.

• Turkish Airlines flies from São Paulo to Istanbul, whose airport is in Europe but is only 16 km from the Asia side of the Bosporus.

These appear to be the only nonstop Asia flights. Wikipedia shows flights from São Paulo to Seoul (Korean Air) and Singapore (Singapore Airlines), but they have stops in Los Angeles and Barcelona respectively.

Answer 2

There are no non-stop flights between Asia and Brazil, due simply to the distance between the two locations.

Bangkok to Sao Paulo is over 10,000 miles - far too far for any current commercial airliner to fly.

Other routes are slightly shorter such as from Singapore ("only" 9,950 miles) and Kuala Lumpur (9,900 miles), but all are still too far.

Qantas has previously run flights from Sydney to Buenos Aires, Argentina (7,300 miles) although I think they have suspended them due to lack of demand.

To put these distances into context, the current longest scheduled flight that includes Economy seating is Sydney to Dallas on Qantas, at 8,578 miles. That flight is so long that they are only able to make it in one direction, and the return has to make a stop in Brisbane due to generally stronger winds in that direction which stop them being able to make it back to Sydney in one flight.