The launch of the world’s newest longest flight is set to open later this year from London’s Heathrow Airport to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport with a flight time of anywhere between 19-22 hours long (depending on the headwind). The route will be flown by an Airbus A350-1000ULR; an aircraft which now is the most efficient passenger long haul aircraft in the world.
Billed as “Project Sunrise”, the flights will operate nonstop from Sydney to both London and New York. Additional departure points will be added from other Australian cities such as Melbourne and Brisbane as the program progresses.
The long haul flight to Sydney will feature different routines and exercises for passengers to do onboard. Passengers will conduct different exercises onboard to keep blood circulating, as well as eating meals based on the current time in Sydney rather than their departure country.
Qantas (Australia’s National Airlines) implemented these activities to acclimate passengers as much as possible to the time in Sydney so when the plane lands, jet lag is majorly removed from passenger experience.
Qantas ordered twelve A350-1000ULR aircrafts from Airbus in May of 2022 to be specially modified in order to have a large enough fuel tank to fly to both London and New York with extra gas left in case of headwinds or needed detours.
If flights are successful, Qantas has said that further destinations could be added for the aircraft to fly to which include Paris, Capetown, Miamaircrafti, Rio, and potentially Frankfurt.
The seat configuration on the new A350s will include 6 enclosed first class suites, followed by 52 premium business class seats which offer direct aisle access, 40 premium economy seats with 40 inches of seat pitch and finally 140 regular economy seats with 33 inches of seat pitch.