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Project Sunrise Books The Longest Commercial Flight
Here for a long time and a good time // Illustration by Kate Walker
An upcoming Qantas route will connect travelers directly from Australia to London or New York, creating the world’s longest commercial passenger flight.
The Big Picture: Over the past few years, travel has gotten a major upgrade — air taxis are starting to roll out, people can travel to the edge of space, and supersonic flight is getting closer to a green light. While the destination will always be the most important part, the journey is becoming an experience in its own right.
Behind The Trip: When Qantas’ Project Sunrise is ready to roll, its flights will last a whopping 22 hours.
The direct Sydney-to-London flight will launch next year, with flights to New York City expected to follow soon after. The route eliminates connections through Asia, the Middle East, or North America, saving travelers up to four hours.
Qantas is using 12 specially designed Airbus A350 jets for the service, each carrying 238 passengers across four cabins: first, business, premium economy, and economy.
That’s fewer passengers than the aircraft typically hold, but the tradeoff is more legroom (thank goodness), additional beds, and a dedicated “well-being zone” for stretching and snacking.
There are other innovations, too. NYT reports that Qantas worked with food and health experts to help reduce jet lag, including custom lighting throughout the flight and curated meal plans (caffeine and chili for breakfast, for example).
Final Destination: There’s already plenty of interest in these new flights, if online activity is any indication. Qantas’ recent test flight from Melbourne to Toulouse, France, was tracked by 3.6 million people on Flightradar24, making it the second-most tracked flight in the site’s history. The only flight to draw more attention was the Royal Air Force flight that carried Queen Elizabeth’s coffin in 2022, which attracted more than 5 million viewers.
The test flight covered 12,460 nautical miles in 24 hours and 24 minutes, potentially making it the longest nonstop flight ever. Qantas is now working with Guinness to determine whether it officially set a world record.
The Future: Longer flights mean more pressure to offer reliable internet access, so expect the bidding war between satellite service providers to heat up.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.