The world's longest flight is moving one step closer to reality as Qantas plans to test 19-hour routes
- Qantas Airlines is planning three nonstop test flights from London and New York City to Sydney, Australia.
- The airline said it will test the routes with three Boeing 787-9 aircraft when it takes delivery of them this fall from Boeing's Seattle plant.
- The flights will be about 19 hours, the world's longest, and the roughly 40 people on board will be monitored by doctors to see how they cope with such a flight.
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Australian airline Qantas is taking the next steps towards its goal of having nonstop 19-hour flights between Sydney and London and New York.
The airline has openly discussed the endevour - internally known as "Project Sunrise - for several years, following the successful launch of a slightly shorter, but still lengthy, nonstop flight between Perth and London in March 2018.
That route is measured as about 9,000 miles and takes around 17 hours, while the Sydney-New York route would be around 10,000 miles, and the Sydney-London flight is about 500 miles longer.
Qantas is scheduled to receive three new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft this fall - one each in October, November, and December. The planes are being built at Boeing's Seattle plant, and would normally be flown by Qantas pilots straight to Australia from there.
Instead, the airline plans to fly the planes to New York and London first, and then fly nonstop to Sydney from there.
The planes won't have paying customers - instead, they'll each have about 40 people on board - including crew - most of whom will be Qantas employees. the airline says it plans to study how those on board react to the lengthy 19-hour flights.
According to the airline, "[s]cientists and medical experts from the Charles Perkins Centre will monitor sleep patterns, food and beverage consumption, lighting, physical movement and inflight entertainment to assess impact on health, wellbeing and body clock."
Commercial flights with full or mostly-full passenger loads are not currently possible due to the range of the airplanes available today. Keeping the planes mostly empty will increase their range, making the test flights possible. A normal Qantas 787-9 can seat up to 236 passengers, plus crew, and carry both luggage and cargo, while still achieving a range of about 9,000 miles - the length of the Perth-London flight.
The airline is considering new ultra-long-range aircraft from Boeing and Airbus for the eventual New York and London to Sydney flights - Airbus' rumored A350-1000ULR airplane, and Boeing 777X project, both of which are still being tested. Qantas has previously said it would make a decision around the end of 2019.
The world's current longest flight - from Singapore to New York's Newark Airport - is operated by a Singapore Airlines A350-900ULR configured with only business class and premium economy seats - no regular economy cabin.