What is the longest journey made of 2-hour flights from London?

Question

Starting from London, what are the furthest places that can be reached by commercial flights, with any number of flight segments and stopovers, but all flights lasting under 2 hours?

For example, can you make it to Shanghai? Tokyo? Sydney? Cape Town? And with what route?

Answer 1

FlightConnections.com lists flight times rounded off to the nearest 5 minutes. Limiting oneself to connections listed on this website as having a flight time of 2h00m or less (as of December 2017), one can construct the following 17-segment itinerary from London to Tokyo, via Shanghai:

• London–Frankfurt: 1h40m
• Frankfurt–Belgrade: 1h50m
• Belgrade–Istanbul: 1h45m
• Istanbul–Beirut: 1h50m
• Beirut–Baghdad: 1h30m
• Baghdad–Bahrain: 1h50m
• Bahrain–Muscat: 1h30m
• Muscat–Karachi: 1h55m
• Karachi–Lahore: 1h45m
• Lahore–Delhi: 1h25m
• Delhi–Kathmandu: 1h35m
• Kathmandu–Lhasa: 1h25m
• Lhasa–Chengdu: 2h00m
• Chengdu–Changsha: 1h50m
• Changsha–Shanghai: 2h00m
• Shanghai–Fukuoka: 1h25m
• Fukuoka–Tokyo: 1h45m

It also appears to be possible to make it to Sydney in 27 segments. Proceed to Chengdu as above, then:

• Chengdu–Kunming: 1h30m
• Kunming–Hanoi: 1h25m
• Hanoi–Phnom Penh: 1h40m
• Phnom Penh–Kuala Lumpur: 1h50m
• Kuala Lumpur–Jakarta: 2h00m
• Jakarta–Surabaya: 1h15m
• Surabaya–Denpasar: 1h10m
• Denapasar–Dili: 1h45m
• Dili–Darwin: 1h20m
• Darwin–Gove: 1h40m
• Gove–Cairns: 1h45m
• Cairns–Townsville: 0h55m
• Townsville–Brisbane: 1h50m
• Brisbane–Sydney: 1h35m

Finally, London–Cape Town can be done in 15 segments. Proceed to Belgrade as above, and then take the following flights:

• Belgrade–Athens: 1h30m
• Athens–Cairo: 1h50m
• Cairo–Medina: 1h50m
• Medina–Khartoum: 2h00m
• Khartoum–Juba: 1h00m (though I suspect that this should be 2h00m, given that the return flight is 3h00m)
• Juba–Nairobi: 1h40m
• Nairobi–Dar es Salaam: 1h25m
• Dar es Salaam–Pemba: 1h10m
• Pemba–Nampula: 0h40m
• Nampula–Beira: 1h15m
• Beira–Johannesburg: 1h50m
• Johannesburg–Bloemfontein: 1h05m
• Bloemfontein–Cape Town: 1h40m

Given the inefficiency of the route I found through Mozambique, there may be a route to Cape Town with fewer segments via western Africa rather than eastern Africa.

All of these itineraries are presented with the caveat that I have not verified the flight times with the airlines in question; indeed, I am not 100% convinced that Flightconnections.com is handling the time zones correctly for some of the flights in Africa.