A single-aisle plane on a long flight used to mean something had gone wrong. Today it's a business plan. Airlines are now flying narrow, one-aisle planes, the same basic shape as the ones on short hops between US cities, across the Atlantic and soon to Japan, on trips of eight or nine hours. If you're booking a flight to Europe from a smaller city, or a nonstop that never existed before, there's a good chance this is the plane you'll get.
The Planes Doing It
The plane behind most of this is the Airbus A321XLR, a stretched-range version of a jet airlines have flown on domestic routes for decades. It can fly up to about 4,700 nautical miles, enough to link the US East Coast with much of Europe. Iberia flew the first transatlantic XLR flight, from Madrid to Boston, in November 2024. Aer Lingus, Air Canada, American, IndiGo and Qantas have since added it, and United starts flying it to Europe in December, from Washington Dulles to Amsterdam and Dublin.
Boeing's single-aisle 737 MAX is joining in too. On Monday, Alaska Airlines announced a nonstop from Anchorage to Tokyo starting next May on a 737 MAX 8, which by its own schedule will take about eight hours and 15 minutes. Some of the longest single-aisle flights now run around nine hours, like Iberia's Madrid to Santo Domingo route.
The trend is real. Schedule data from Cirium shows about 56,500 single-aisle flights across the Atlantic were scheduled in 2025, about half again as many as in 2019.
Why Airlines Love Them
It comes down to risk. A widebody plane with 300 seats needs a lot of people to fill it every single day. A single-aisle plane with fewer than 200 seats can make money on routes that were never big enough for a jumbo, like Dublin to Nashville or Newark to Luxembourg. That's why so many new nonstops from mid-sized cities have appeared in the past two years. Airlines also use them to keep a route running through quiet winter months instead of cutting it entirely.
Not every airline has made it work. Wizz Air, the Hungarian budget airline, has decided to fly its XLRs on shorter routes only, saying they no longer fit its plans. JetBlue, an early fan of single-aisle flights to Europe, has dropped a route and says it won't get any more planes capable of crossing the Atlantic until 2030.
What It's Actually Like on Board
The biggest difference is space, and you feel it most in economy. There's one aisle, so the drink cart blocks everything when it comes through, and economy seats are about 18 inches wide, similar to a domestic flight. Overhead bins are smaller, and there's less room to stand and stretch at the back.
Then there's the restroom line. On the A321XLR, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Air Canada have about one restroom for every 56 economy passengers, according to seat-map site AeroLOPA. American's is closer to one for every 41, and United's about one for every 43, but on United the front restroom is for business class only. On a nine-hour overnight flight, that line can be the worst part of the trip.
Single-Aisle, Long Flight
The Restroom Math on a 9-Hour Flight
Economy passengers per restroom on the Airbus A321XLR
Contrail
Business class is the good news. Many of these planes have real lie-flat beds up front, and American's even have doors. Not all of them, though. Alaska's Tokyo flight and Qantas's XLRs have recliners in first or business, not beds, which is a very different night's sleep. Crew rest is tighter too. On American's XLR, the flight attendants' rest area is a few blocked seats at the back behind a curtain.
How to Check Before You Book
This is another case where the plane matters more than the airline. Google Flights shows the aircraft type in small print under each flight, and your airline's booking page usually lists it in the flight details. Look for "A321XLR," "A321LR," "A321neo" or "737 MAX" on any flight over six hours. If it's an overnight trip and you're in economy, think about whether a slightly longer connection on a widebody is worth it. If the single-aisle flight saves you a connection entirely, it often is.
