which airline company has the highest cruise altitude?

Question

i heard that in europe theres an airline company which its planes cruise over 40,000 to 50,000 what is the normal cruising altitude for a 3 hour flight going eastwhard clear skys

Answer 1

As far as I know, altitudes are set by flight control with no regard to airline.

Answer 2

Cruise altitude depends on distance of the flight and the aircraft. Some aircraft types have a higher maximum cruising altitude than others. It has absolutely nothing to do with the airline.

Most commercial aircraft fly in the high 30's. A few use the low 40's. There are no commercial aircraft that fly at 50,000 ft now that the Concorde is out of service. In the US, eastbound aircraft fly at odd thousands depending on what is assigned by air traffic control.

Answer 3

nope it really depends on how the airline makes he's OFP (operational flight plan) and if they are accepted by the air traffic control, in general they do the OFP's trying to safe fuel and time, it depends of the plane type that a specific airline operates, for example if they have 737's they would probably go about 33000-34000 feet in normal weather conditions, but on bad weather conditions they can go up to 39000feet (That's the limit of a 737/A320) jumbo jets such as 747 can go up to 45000 feet but they usually fly at 42000 feet. keep in mind that the higher the altitude is the more uncomfortable will be the flight :D

Answer 4

the higher you go - you have to be on auto pilot
because you are closer to a stalling speed at that
altitude -

was listening to cockpit communications - on TED
and one of the other craft on our channel lost their
autopilot and had to descend below Flight Level 400
(40,000 ft) since they had to fly 'hands on'

highest I heard was FL435

The standard rule define an East/West track split:

Eastbound - Track 000 to 179° - odd thousands (FL 250, 270, etc.)
Westbound - Track 180 to 359° - even thousands (FL 260, 280, etc.)


have a great 2008