Designed for ultra long-haul routes, the -500 has a range of 9,000 nautical miles, where the Boeing 777-200LR have an 8,555 nmi range, fewer. Due to its range, the -500 is capable of travelling non-stop from London to Perth, Western Australia, though a return flight requires a fuel stop due to headwinds. Singapore Airlines used this model (initially in a two-class 181-passenger layout, later in a 100-passenger business-only layout) between early 2004 and late 2013 for its Newark–Singapore and Singapore–Newark nonstop routes SQ21 and SQ22. The former was an 18-hour, 45-minute 'westbound' (actually a polar route northbound to 130 km (70 nm) abeam the North Pole, then south across Russia, Mongolia and the People's Republic of China) and the latter was an 18-hour, 30-minute eastbound, journey. At the time, the flight was the longest scheduled non-stop commercial flight in the world. Singapore Airlines even added a special compartment to the aircraft to store a corpse if a passenger were to die during the flight, though it was reported it had not been necessary. Singapore Airlines suspended operating the flight from 2013 onwards partly due to high fuel prices then and returned its aircraft to Airbus in exchange for ordering new Airbus A350 aircraft. The SQ21/SQ22 route was eventually resumed, flown by A350-900ULR aircraft.