Singapore Airlines Ltd, the world's second-largest carrier by market value, said it will begin an 18-hour direct flight to New York on June 28, setting a new record for the world's longest non-stop service.

The new service will beat an existing record set by Singapore Airlines on February 3 when it launched a 16-hour non-stop flight to Los Angeles from Singapore.

The 57-percent government-owned airline will use an Airbus A340-500 181-seat aircraft for the New York service, the same plane it used on the direct Los Angeles flight.

The flight to New York, over the Arctic from equatorial Singapore, will cut up to four hours in travel time compared with existing one-stop services.

Singapore Airlines, with a market value of US$7.7 billion, said the daily non-stop service will increase its frequency to New York to 14 times weekly from 11, which includes the daily one-stop service the airline operates via Frankfurt in Germany.

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