Qantas lands historic non-stop flight from London to Sydney
Qantas has done the unthinkable and touched down in Sydney after departing from London on a shocking 20-hour flight.
The journey was 17,800 kilometres long and this means that Qantas have successfully landed its second ultra-long-haul research flight as a part of Project Sunrise.
It’s the second time the route has been flown by a commercial airline, as the first time was back in 1989.
Project Sunrise is studying ways to combat jetlag for those on board and the flight carried just 52 passengers and crew.
It’s not the first test flight that Qantas has done, as they did another non-stop flight trial that connected New York and Sydney last month.
Despite the London-Sydney flight being 1500 kilometres further than New York-Sydney, it takes a shorter journey due to tailwinds.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said that Qantas wants to make the non-stop journeys a reality within the next few years.
“We know that travellers want room to move on these direct flights, and the exercises we encouraged on the first research flight seemed to work really well,” he said to news.com.au.
“So, we’re definitely looking to incorporate on-board stretching zones and even some simple modifications like overhead handles to encourage low impact exercises.”
Joyce also mentioned that the non-stop Perth to London flight has boosted confidence in the longer proposed journeys.
“It had the highest customer satisfaction rating after a year of any route on our network, and it’s been the most successful launch of a new route,” he said.