Flight 1 – The most prestigious airline flight number

Flight 1 is the most prestigious flight number assigned by airlines. It’s used to denote a historic route, or one that an airline regards as their flagship service. For example Qantas designate QF1 on the historic Kangaroo Route from Sydney to London. This service began in 1947, where it would hop (like a proverbial kangaroo) via six destinations on the way. Once the long-haul jet age arrived the flight could then be done with one stop, which was via Singapore.

When Qantas partnered with Emirates in 2013, QF1 was rerouted via Dubai. In March 2018 Qantas announced that it would be returning its QF1 service via Singapore.

While reading about this I got to thinking about what other Flight 1 services are operating. I did some research and made a list of all the flights. I’ve also made an infographic if you prefer to read these stats visually (see below).

Here are the flights and some of the stats that stand out from this list.

Number 1 Flights By Airline

Airline	Flight #	Departure	IATA	Stopover	IATA	Arrival	IATA
Aeromexico	AM1	Mexico City	MEX			Madrid	MAD
Air Canada	AC1	Toronto	YYZ			Tokyo	HND
Air Macau	NX1	Beijing	PEK			Macau	MFM
Air New Zealand	NZ1	London	LHR	Los Angeles	LAX	Auckland	AKL
Air Niugini	PX1	Port Moresby	POM			Sydney	SYD
Air Tahiti Nui	TN1	Los Angeles	LAX			Papeete	PPT
AirAsiaX	D71	Kuala Lumpur	KUL	Kansai	KIX	Honolulu	HNL
Alaska Airlines	AS1	Washington DC	DCA			Seattle	SEA
American Airlines	AA1	New York	JFK			Los Angeles	LAX
ANA	NH1	Washington DC	IAD			Tokyo	HND
Biman Bangladesh Airlines	BG1	Dhaka	DAC			London	LHR
British Airways	BA1	London	LCY	Shannon	SNN	New York	JFK
China Airlines	CI1	Honolulu	HNL			Taipei	TPE
Delta Air Lines	DL1	London	LHR			New York	JFK
El Al	LY1	Tel Aviv	TLV			New York	JFK
Emirates	EK1	Dubai	DXB			London	LHR
Etihad Airways	EY1	Abu Dhabi	AUH			Frankfurt	FRA
Hawaiian Airlines	HA1	Los Angeles	LAX			Honolulu	HNL
Japan Airlines	JL1	San Francisco	SFO			Tokyo	HND
JetBlue Airways	B61	New York	JFK			Fort Lauderdale	FLL
Jetstar Airways	JQ1	Melbourne	MEL			Honolulu	HNL
Korean Air	KE1	Incheon	ICN	Tokyo	NRT	Honolulu	HNL
LOT Polish Airlines	LO1	Warsaw	WAW			Chicago	ORD
Lufthansa	LH1	Hamburg	HAM			Frankfurt	FRA
Malaysia Airlines	MH1	London	LHR			Kuala Lumpur	KUL
Middle East Airlines	ME1	Beirut	BEY			Damman	DMM
Myanmar National Airlines	UB1	Yangon	RGN			Singapore	SIN
Peach	MM1	Kansai	KIX			Incheon	ICN
Qantas	QF1	Sydney	SYD	Singapore	SIN	London	LHR
Qatar Airways	QR1	Doha	DOH			London	LHR
S7 Airlines	S71	Moscow	DME			Nizhniy Novgorod	GOJ
SAS	SK1	Lulea	LLA			Stockholm	ARN
Singapore Airlines	SQ1	San Francisco	SFO	Hong Kong	HKG	Singapore	SIN
Southwest Airlines	WN1	Dallas	DAL	Houston	HOU	Corpus Christi	CRP
SpiceJet	SG1	Chennai	MAA			Colombo	CMB
Turkish Airlines	TK1	Istanbul	IST			New York	JFK
United Airlines	UA1	San Francisco	SFO			Singapore	SIN
Ural Airlines	U61	Yekaterinburg	SVX			Moscow	SVO
Virgin Atlantic	VS1	London	LHR			New York	EWR
Virgin Australia	VA1	Sydney	SYD			Los Angeles	LAX
WestJet	WS1	Calgary	YYC			London	LGW

[Flights correct as of May 2018.]

Most Number 1 flights by city [Top 5]

London New York Honolulu Los Angeles Singapore Tokyo San Francisco Sydney

10 7 5 5 4 4 3 3

After compiling this list it was no surprise to tally it up and find that London and New York has the most number 1 flights. London has three airports out of its five with a #1 flight, while New York has #1 flights at 2 out of 3 of its airports.

I expected Los Angeles to do will being the gateway to the west, but I was surprised to see how well Honolulu fared.

Most Number 1 flights by airport

London LHR New York JFK

8 6

When it comes to Number 1 flights, London Heathrow is the world’s most prestigious airport.

While it has lost its ranking as the world’s busiest passenger airport, it still retains its flagship allure. Heathrow is certainly helped by having Commonwealth countries in the list, and it’s still a major European hub.

By comparison Atlanta (ATL) is the world’s busiest passenger airport yet it has no #1 flights. Beijing (PEK) is the second busiest and it has just one #1. Beijing’s passenger numbers are bolstered by domestic flights, but it’s unlikely that is will ever be an internationally prestigious hub airport.

Other prestigious numbers – #10 #100 #101 and #1000 flights

This list deals exclusively with #1 flights, even though there are #10, #100, #101 and #1000 flights which are the lowest assigned numbers by some airlines.

Air France assigns AF10 for Paris CDG to New York JFK. Kenya Airways starts at 100, with KQ100 flying from Nairobi NBO to London LHR. Another Heathrow 100 flight is Air Malta KM100 (MLA – LHR), and Oman Air operate WY101 from Muscat MCT to London LHR. KLM don’t get started until 1000, with KL1000 being assigned to the LHR – AMS route.

If I did tally up all these flights then London Heathrow would have been even further ahead in the rankings.

Flight of the Concorde

The most prestigious commercial #1 flight was BA1 on the Concorde from London Heathrow to New York JFK. The last British Airways flight was BA2 from JFK to LHR, on 24 October 2003.

[The BA Concorde as viewed from a BA flight out of Heathrow.]

BA1 is now a business-class only flight on an A318 from London City (LCY) to New York (JFK), via Shannon (SNN) for refuelling and US immigration and customs pre-clearance.

Presidential flights

This list is only for commercial flights, though some airlines reserve their #1 for special government flights.

Philippine Airlines PR1 is reserved for when the president charters a flight. When I checked Flight Aware it showed the last PR1 flight was from HKG to DVO, and sure enough President Duterte had just returned from Hong Kong.

Indian Airlines (AI) is another airline that reserve #1 for government charter.

I was at Hanoi Airport when I saw VN1 on the departure board. The flight was to Vnukovo International Airport (VKO) in Moscow, though scheduled flights fly to Domodedovo (DME). This was just before Vietnam announced it had ordered Russian weapons, so this would have been a government flight.

When not having a #1 flight is a good idea

One airline that thankfully hasn’t taken up the flight 1 option is WOW Air from Iceland. Their IATA code is WW, so flying on WW1 and returning on WW2 wouldn’t be the best look on the departure board.

Can airports lobby for #1 flights?

Sometimes airports offer incentives for airlines to start a service at that airport. I wonder if airports would also lobby to have #1 flights at their airport.

Singapore Airlines is due to recommence the world’s longest non-stop flight from Singapore to New York. JFK Airport would have a case for serving the #1 flight over the current SQ1 San Francisco-Hong Kong-Singapore route.

And maybe in China a member of the CPC is reading this humble blog and is incensed by my statement of Beijing Capital International Airport never being a prestigious airport. They could then mandate at the next National Congress that all Chinese airlines must designate Flight 1 to or from Beijing.

Flight notes

As we have seen with Qantas, flights numbers change over the years so the information here was correct at time of publishing. I’ll keep this list updated so let me know if there are any changes. I will record any changes here.

EVA Air had a #1 flight (BR1) from Los Angeles (LAX) to Taipei (TPE). This was last flown in 2016, and now the lowest flight is BR5 between the same cities. If this was still active than LAX would have been equal with JFK as the most amount of #1 flights in the US. Maybe LAX should lobby to have it returned and try and take the US title from JFK.

Tarom last operated RO1 from Timisoara (TSR) to New York (JFK) in 2003. This was probably a government flight given that Timisoara is a secondary city.

Vietnam Airlines have a VN1 service which is sometimes listed as Hanoi HAN – Paris CDG. At the time of my research the flight number was being used for government use, with different flights from SGN and HAN to SIN. This was around the time of an ASEAN conference being held in Singapore.

Flight 1 Infographic

If you would like to use this on your site here is the embed code.

<a href="https://www.nomadicnotes.com/flight-1" target="_blank"><img decoding="async" src="https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-8mrcT6T/0/2d9d7360/O/i-8mrcT6T.png" alt="Flight 1 Infographic"></a>