15+ Hour Flight Taking off on runway less than 10K feet

[hitchens97]

So today I saw something I'd never seen before. A 15+ hour flight Qatar airlines flight from SFO to Doha on A350, took off on SFO 1R (calm conditions), which is only 8600 feet. Sometimes the long haul to Europe might use that, but I've never seen any of the long distance Asian flights or Middle Eastern flights take off from it. They nearly always use 28L/28R.

Just a sign of the times, with flights running very light with the pandemic and/or the A350 can really get in the air real quick?

[DaveReidUK]

The A359 at MTOW needs around 2,200 m (8,850 ft) at ISA, SL and around 2,750 m (9,000 ft) at ISA+15, so there would a weight penalty (but not much) with 8,600 ft.

[Musket90]

Also a healthy tailwind helps which I think is the case at the moment with high level east jet streams favouring the northerly route so considerably reducing flight time.

[N707ZS]

Presume the passenger load isn't great at the moment.