The Australian airline has ordered twelve Airbus A350-1000s for the ‘Project Sunrise’ with which it aims to offer direct flights to cities such as London and New York from 2025, starting from the Australian city of Sydney. “New aircraft types enable new things,” Qantas chairman Alan Joyce said in a statement Monday.
“With the A350 and Project Sunrise, every city is just one flight away from Australia,” said Joyce. “It is the last frontier and the final solution to the tyranny of distance.”
In October 2019, Qantas already successfully conducted a test flight between New York and Sydney with a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. In a time of 19 hours and 16 minutes, the 16,200 kilometers between the two cities was bridged at the time, making it the longest direct scheduled flight ever completed. Between London and Sydney, 17,750 kilometers, the airline flew in 19 hours and 19 minutes.
Initially, the airline had plans to offer direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to New York and London as early as this year, but those plans were shelved due to the corona pandemic. There is already a Perth-London connection of 14,498 kilometers in 17 hours.