Heat exchanger and air conditioning apparatus including the same

A heat exchanger comprising:

• flat pipes disposed in multiple stages in a stage direction corresponding to an up-down direction, wherein each of the flat pipes comprises a passage for a refrigerant inside thereof;
• and
• fins that partition a space between adjacent two of the flat pipes into air flow passages through which air flows, wherein
• the flat pipes are divided into heat exchange paths arrayed in multiple stages in the stage direction,
• one of the heat exchange paths is a first heat exchange path that comprises a lowermost one of the flat pipes,
• a path effective length of the first heat exchange path is longer than a path effective length of any of the other heat exchange paths, wherein the path effective length is a length of the passage from one end to another end of a flow of the refrigerant in each of the heat exchange paths, and
• a number of the flat pipes constituting the first heat exchange path is smaller than a number of the flat pipes constituting any of the other heat exchange paths.