French airlines are taking extreme measures to avoid the US at all costs on their routes to the South Pacific after Trump's travel ban, including the world's longest non-stop flight from Tahiti to Paris

De facto French Polynesian flag carrier Air Tahiti Nui currently connects Papeete with Paris via San Francisco, its flagship route. The airline has similarly been forced to adjust to the US government's restrictions on European residents as many passengers are traveling solely between Papeete and Paris as well as Paris and Papeete, not just between Papeete and Los Angeles.

To avoid having to subject its European passengers to US Customs and Border Protection in Los Angeles, Air Tahiti Nui is rerouting its flights through Vancouver, Canada, which allows airside transfers that do not require entering the country, and Pointe-À-Pitre, Guadeloupe.

The airline, however, decided to operate a single, non-stop flight from Papeete to Paris on Sunday, a flight so long in length that it shortly became the longest commercial flight in the world. Scheduled as TN64, the non-stop routing has a great circle distance of 8,485 nautical miles, 200 miles greater than the distance traveled by the current longest flight in the world between Singapore and Newark.

The chart-topping 16-hour and 30-minute flight is being operated by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, the newest in Air Tahiti Nui's fleet that is prominently featured on the list of world's longest flights. Qantas uses the aircraft for the third-longest flight in the world between Perth, Australia, and London, United Kingdom, the only non-stop link between the two countries.

The route, however, is not longer than either of Qantas' Project Sunrise research flight routes from New York and London to Sydney, which Business Insider reported about in October. Tailwinds in the eastbound direction enabled Air Tahiti Nui, which has been rumored to start a non-stop flight between Paris and Papeete, to accomplish the flight which wouldn't have been possible with the Dreamliner in the opposite direction.

The French flag carrier does not have plans to adjust its Paris-Papeete route which stops over in Los Angeles. Passengers who have visited the restricted European countries in the past 14 days who are not US citizens, permanent residents, or other persons excluded under the presidential proclamation will not be allowed to fly on any leg that terminates in Los Angeles.

Air France operates the flight with a Boeing 777 aircraft.