Qantas said it will fly direct from Sydney to New York and London from 2025. At 20 hours, Sydney-London would be the world's longest passenger flight.

• Qantas said Monday it plans to operate direct flights from Sydney to New York and London.
• At 20 hours, the Sydney-London route would be the world's longest passenger flight.

Qantas said Monday it plans to operate direct flights from Sydney to New York and London from late 2025.

At 20 hours, the Sydney-London route would be the world's longest passenger flight.

The new routes mark a revival of Qantas' pre-pandemic plan of introducing ultra-long-haul non-stop services from Australia's west coast – a plan that was put on hold by the pandemic.

Qantas said Monday it's ordering 12 Airbus A350-1000s to allow it to operate the new routes under its Project Sunrise plan.

Airbus' widebody A350-1000 has a range of up to 10,000 miles and can carry up to 410 passengers, according to the manufacturer. Qantas said the jet's Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 turbofan engines are 25% more fuel efficient than the previous generation aircraft.

Qantas' A350s will carry 238 passengers in four classes from economy to first, the airline said. Each aircraft will carry an extra fuel tank to fly the long distances, Bloomberg reported.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said: "The A350 and Project Sunrise will make any city just one flight away from Australia. It's the last frontier and the final fix for the tyranny of distance."

In 2018, Joyce told BBC Breakfast that a Sydney-London route would be the "Holy Grail" for the company.

Qantas has reported renewed confidence in demand for international travel, saying in a trading update Monday that demand for its London, Los Angeles, South Africa, and Bali routes was exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Direct long-haul services were also increasingly popular, it said.

Also Monday, Qantas announced it had ordered 40 Airbus A321XLR and A220 aircraft, saying that the order in full from Airbus was "the largest aircraft order in Australian aviation."