New York til Sydney gjennomført på 19t 16 min. - Sydney Morning Herald / Qantas / BBC

On board the 19 hour Qantas flight from New York to Sydney

This isn’t some bizarre dream – it’s a taste of what could be the future of long-haul travel.

By Patrick Hatch
October 20, 2019

I’m dancing the Macarena in the aisle of a mostly empty jet plane as it hurtles past Las Vegas 10,972 metres up in the night’s sky.
This isn’t some bizarre dream – it’s a taste of what Qantas thinks will be the future of long-haul travel.

Passengers exercise on board QF7879 from New York to Sydney on October 19, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. Credit:James D Morgan/ Getty Images

At 7.43am on Sunday a factory-fresh Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner touched down in Sydney after completing an epic 16,200 kilometre, 19 hour and 16 minute non-stop flight from New York.
The time elapsed from the moment the jets doors dock at JFK Airport to when they open Charles Kingsford-Smith is 19 hours and 42 minutes.
It's the first time a commercial airline has flown directly between the two cities - a longer journey in duration and distance than any airline route flown in the world today.
The trip is the first of three “test flights” set out to improve passengers’ health and wellbeing on journeys this long, and to ensure pilots aren’t too fatigued to fly them safely.

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It comes as Qantas nears a decision on what it calls Project Sunrise - launching regular passenger services from New York and London to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the next few years.

Qantas’ New York-Sydney nonstop on Friday will (briefly) be world’s longest

 Ben Mutzabaugh

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When Qantas Airways Flight 7879 takes off tonight from New York JFK, it will displace Singapore Airlines’ Flight 21 from Singapore to Newark as the longest airline route in the world.
But the title change for the “world’s longest flight” will be short-lived.
QF7879 is scheduled to depart JFK around 9 p.m. for a nonstop flight to Sydney, where it will arrive around 7 a.m. local time on Sunday morning. Total flight time: about 19.5 hours. Qantas puts the distance of the flight at about 10,000 miles.
Update (Saturday, Oct. 19): First look: Qantas Airways’ historic Project Sunrise flight touches down in Sydney
It’s the first time an airline has ever flown nonstop from New York to Sydney, says Qantas.
The airline shared the flight plan for QF7879, showing the route going initially from New York to Southern California over the middle of the country, then over the Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii and then south to Sydney. (The three-letter and four-letter codes in the flight-plan maps are airports, and the five-letter codes are waypoints, as are the geographic coordinates that appear over the ocean along the route.)



But Friday’s New York-Sydney flight will not become a regular occurrence, at least not yet. Qantas will operate this flight and one other on the route by the end of the year.
It’s all part of what Qantas is billing as “Project Sunrise,” an effort that also will include a third ultra long-haul flight that will fly nonstop to Sydney from London.
Qantas is billing Project Sunrise as a research effort that’s meant to study the effects of extreme  long-haul flying on both passengers and crew.
However, the effort also comes as Qantas is pushing Airbus and Boeing, the world’s two biggest jetmakers, to develop an aircraft that can fly those routes with a full load of passengers and cargo.
Currently, no commercial passenger aircraft is capable to doing so.
So, how is Qantas flying Friday’s flight?
The carrier is using a Boeing 787-9 that it’s just taken delivery of. But instead of flying it to Australia directly from Boeing’s assembly line near Seattle to Australia, the plane will detour through New York so that it can complete Flight 7879.
The aircraft can’t make the trip with a full complement of passengers and cargo, but it can if it’s not fully loaded — and that’s just what Qantas is doing.
Only about 50 people, including both passengers and crew, will be on the flight. That count includes a half-dozen Qantas frequent-fliers that the airline contacted with an offer for a seat on the flight. Most already had plans to be in New York, so the invite to the Project Sunrise flight offered them an unexpected nonstop ride back to Australia.
Beyond that, the flight will include airline officials and researchers who really are studying the effects of the flight. Qantas’ frequent-fliers have been keeping sleep journals and will be monitored by the sleep scientists during and after the flight. Crews also will participate. Pilots, for example, will wear EEG (electroencephalogram) monitors that will track brainwaves and alertness.
Qantas promises to share the results as part of a way to tailor its offerings on ultra-long flights.
But whether that will eventually include routes like Sydney-New York remains to be seen.
Qantas expects to decide by year’s end about whether to press ahead with plans to add nonstops to London and New York from Australia’s east coast cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Much of that likely will hinge on whether Airbus and Boeing can deliver aircraft updates that satisfy Qantas’ desire to launch the ultra-long routes. Qantas would also have to secure regulatory approval and crew contracts that would allow pilots and cabin crew to work flights that could top 20 hours.
The carrier says it’s considering Airbus’s A350 and Boeing’s new 777X as candidates for the routes. It would likely take until 2022 or 2023 before aircraft could be ready to begin regular flights on those Project Sunrise routes.
For now, though, Friday’s Flight 7879 will offer a glimpse of what might come.
Stay tuned …
TPG will be on the flight and will have a full report Sunday after landing in Australia. Be sure to check back to see what it was like on the marathon flight.
Featured image courtesy of Qantas Airways

Qantas completes test of longest non-stop passenger flight

• 7 hours ago

Image copyright AFP/HANDOUT

Image caption All smiles: Qantas crew celebrate after the 19-hour journey from New York to Sydney

Australian carrier Qantas has completed a test of the longest non-stop commercial passenger flight as part of research on how the journey could affect pilots, crew and passengers.

The Boeing 787-9 with 49 people on board took 19 hours and 16 minutes to fly from New York to Sydney, a 16,200-km (10,066-mile) route.
Next month, the company plans to test a non-stop flight from London to Sydney.
Qantas expects to decide on whether to start the routes by the end of 2019.
If it goes ahead with them, the services would start operating in 2022 or 2023.

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No commercial aircraft yet has the range to fly such an ultra-long haul route with a full passenger and cargo load, Reuters news agency reports.
To give the plane sufficient fuel range to avoid re-fuelling, the Qantas flight took off with maximum fuel, restricted baggage load and no cargo.

Image copyright AFP/HANDOUT

Image caption The Boeing 787-9 arrives at Sydney international airport

Passengers set their watches to Sydney time after boarding and were kept awake until night fell in eastern Australia to reduce their jetlag.
Six hours later, they were served a high-carbohydrate meal and the lights were dimmed to encourage them to sleep.
On-board tests included monitoring pilot brain waves, melatonin levels and alertness as well as exercise classes for passengers and analysis of the impact of crossing so many time zones on people's bodies.
"This is a really significant first for aviation. Hopefully, it's a preview of a regular service that will speed up how people travel from one side of the globe to the other," said Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce.

Competition in the ultra-long haul aviation market has intensified in recent years, with various airlines flying extended routes.
Singapore Airlines launched a near-19 hour journey from Singapore to New York last year, which is currently the world's longest regular commercial flight.
Also last year, Qantas began a 17-hour non-stop service from Perth to London, while Qatar Airways operates a 17.5-hour service between Auckland and Doha.