Qantas Confirms World’s Longest Nonstop Flight, Set to Launch in 2027

Qantas says Sydney-to-London flights will become the world’s longest nonstop passenger route in October 2027, flown by a specially modified Airbus jet built for trips of up to 22 hours — with New York up next.

Qantas will launch nonstop flights between Sydney and London in October 2027 aboard a specially modified Airbus jet, creating what the airline says will be the world’s longest nonstop scheduled passenger route.

The Sydney-London service is the first route for Qantas’s long-delayed “Project Sunrise” program, which the airline first promised in 2017. Tickets are planned to go on sale in February 2027, and the first aircraft, named Vega, is due for delivery that April, according to Qantas.

Once it begins, the route will erase the final stopover on what Qantas calls the Kangaroo Route, the airline’s link between Australia’s east coast and London that began in 1947 with seven refueling stops and roughly five days of travel.

“Qantas was built on the belief that Australia’s distance from the rest of the world should never stand in the way,” Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said. “The pioneering spirit of generations of our people has forged that path ever since, and today is the most significant step in that mission in our 105-year history.”

“Since we first flew the Kangaroo Route in 1947, where we stopped seven times on the way to London, every generation of aircraft has taken a stop out of the journey,” Hudson said. “Today, we’re taking out the last one.”

“We made a commitment in 2017 that Qantas would conquer the final frontier of long-haul aviation and connect Australia’s east coast directly to London, something that has never before been possible,” Hudson said. “From October 2027, that promise becomes reality.”

The flight will cover more than 9,900 miles (16,000 kilometers) and is expected to take between 19 and 22 hours, according to Qantas. Service is set to begin once aircraft delivery, ticket sales and final regulatory approvals are complete, the airline said.

“Eliminating the stopover saves customers up to four hours of travel time,” Hudson said. “This aircraft has been designed from the ground up for ultra long-haul travel, with a cabin built around science and combatting jetlag, with an onboard experience purpose-built for the length of the journey.”

Don Farrell, Australia’s trade minister, called the announcement a milestone for relations between the two countries. “This is a significant milestone for aviation and tourism in both Australia and the UK and a demonstration of the strong friendship between our two nations,” Farrell said.

A Specially Modified Airbus, Built for Distance

Qantas unveiled the first of its specially modified Airbus A350-1000ULR aircraft at the Toulouse event. The carrier has ordered 12 of the jets for Project Sunrise, configured with 238 seats across four cabins: six suites in First, 52 suites in Business, 40 seats in Premium Economy and 140 seats in Economy, including 42 Economy Plus seats with 34 inches of pitch.

That is a fraction of the up to 480 passengers a standard Airbus A350-1000 can carry, and well below the airliner’s typical three-class configuration of 375 to 400 seats, according to Airbus.

The reduced seat count makes room for an extra 20,000-liter fuel tank, along with a modified fuel system and new galley cooling architecture, Airbus said. Powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines, the aircraft is designed to fly more than 16,000 kilometers nonstop for up to 22 hours, the manufacturer said.

Estimates of the jet’s range vary depending on the source. Qantas’s fact sheet lists the A350-1000ULR’s range at 8,800 nautical miles. Reuters reported that the added fuel tank boosts range by 1,000 nautical miles, to 10,000 nautical miles, while Aviation Week put the figure at 9,800 nautical miles and listed a maximum takeoff weight of about 714,000 pounds (324 metric tons). Aircraft range can vary with payload, reserves and routing, and the figures are not necessarily in conflict.

The modified jet measures about 212 feet (64.75 meters) across the wings and 242 feet (73.78 meters) in length, with a cruise speed of Mach 0.85, according to Qantas’s fact sheet.

Certification of the ULR variant began after the first modified aircraft, with the manufacturer designation MSN707, completed its first flight on June 2, 2026, Airbus said. The aircraft must still be certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency before entering service, even though the baseline A350-1000 received type certification from EASA and the Federal Aviation Administration in 2017.

The test aircraft has since begun a roughly two-month flight-test campaign, while a second Project Sunrise aircraft is in final assembly, interior fitting and painting ahead of its planned April 2027 delivery, Qantas said.

“Flight testing a production aircraft adds a layer of extra pressure,” said Laurent Rossignol, an Airbus test flight engineer for the MSN707 campaign. “You are sitting inside the actual product. The customer is trusting us with their future flagship. Every switch we flip, every check we carry out, every manoeuvre we perform has to be executed with the passenger experience and operational reliability in mind.”

Beating the Current Record-Holder

The current longest regularly scheduled nonstop passenger flight is Singapore Airlines’ service between Singapore and New York, which covers 9,538 miles (15,349 kilometers) in just under 19 hours, according to the Euronews report on the announcement. Industry data provider OAG lists slightly different distances for the route, placing the New York-Singapore pairing at 9,527 miles (15,332 kilometers) from John F. Kennedy International Airport and 9,525 miles (15,329 kilometers) from Newark Liberty International Airport — a variance that appears to reflect differing airport-pair calculation methods rather than a factual dispute.

A key difference between the two carriers’ ultra-long-haul services: Singapore Airlines’ flight, SQ24, does not carry economy passengers, while Qantas’s Project Sunrise jets will carry 140 in Economy.

Until Project Sunrise enters service, the farthest an economy passenger can currently fly nonstop is on Qantas’s existing London-Perth route, which covers 9,010 miles (14,499 kilometers) in 16 to 18 hours. OAG ranks Qantas among the busiest operators of ultra-long routes, with three services — Perth-London, Dallas/Fort Worth-Melbourne and Paris-Perth — among the world’s 10 longest nonstop routes. The average distance among the world’s 10 longest nonstop routes reached 9,013 miles (14,504 kilometers) in 2025, up from 7,871 miles (12,667 kilometers) in 2000, OAG said, a shift it attributed to the rise of efficient twin-engine widebody jets such as the A350 and Boeing 787.

Selling Time, Not Just Distance

Qantas is betting that passengers will pay a premium to save hours in the air. The airline’s fiscal 2025 investor presentation cited a 23% revenue-per-available-seat-kilometer advantage for its direct Perth-London flights over indirect routings to the same destination, and Reuters reported Qantas hopes to replicate a roughly 20% fare premium it has achieved on that route compared with one-stop alternatives.

“What they are selling is time, and they absolutely need to get a premium on all the cabins, particularly business and premium economy,” John Strickland, an aviation analyst, told Reuters.

Qantas’s fiscal 2025 investor presentation said Project Sunrise is expected to add about 14 billion available seat kilometers and lift Qantas International’s capacity by roughly 20%, generating more than 400 million Australian dollars a year in incremental earnings once the network matures. That presentation, issued in August 2025, also referenced an October 2026 delivery date for the first aircraft that Qantas’s more recent updates have since superseded with the April 2027 date for the jet named Vega.

The order also extended a long-running contest between Airbus and Boeing. Airbus won the Project Sunrise order in 2019 after competing with Boeing’s 777X, Reuters reported, and Airbus confirmed in May 2022 that Qantas had ordered 12 A350-1000s for the program. Boeing’s 777-8, the rival it had pitched, is advertised with a range of 8,745 nautical miles, seating for 395 passengers in a two-class configuration, General Electric GE9X engines and a length of about 232 feet (70.9 meters), according to Boeing.

“New types of aircraft make new things possible,” Alan Joyce, then Qantas Group CEO, said when the order was confirmed in 2022. “That’s what makes today’s announcement so significant for the national carrier and for a country like Australia where air travel is crucial. 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.”

Christian Scherer, Airbus’s chief commercial officer and head of Airbus International, said at the time: “Qantas is one of the world’s iconic airlines, with a visionary spirit from its inception over 100 years ago. We are honoured by the confidence that Qantas is placing in Airbus and look forward to delivering to the Group one of the world’s most modern, efficient and sustainable fleets. This decision by Qantas underscores the position of the A350 as the reference long range widebody aircraft.”

Ewen McDonald, chief customer officer at Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace, said the engine maker has supplied Qantas for decades. “We have been powering Qantas aircraft for more than 40 years and we are delighted to be making more history with Qantas on Project Sunrise,” McDonald said. “This project is closely aligned with our company’s passion for pioneering new innovation and achieving industry firsts. Our Trent XWB engine already has a pedigree in powering ultra long-haul flights and doing so with the maximum efficiency and reliability.”

New York Is Next, and a U.S. Connection Already Exists

Qantas says Sydney-New York will be the second Project Sunrise route, connecting Australia nonstop to New York for the first time, though the airline has not yet announced a launch date for that service.

Until the New York nonstop begins, Qantas already serves the route indirectly. The airline returned to New York via Auckland starting June 14, 2023, using Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Qantas also maintains a partnership with American Airlines covering year-round and seasonal flights across the Pacific and codeshare connections throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, including Qantas-operated service between Sydney and New York via Auckland.

Qantas has said it will separately receive 12 Airbus A350-1000LRs beginning in its 2028 fiscal year under a different program, known as Project Fysh, which the airline said should not be confused with the 12 A350-1000ULR jets ordered for Project Sunrise.

Aircraft Designed Around the Clock

Qantas said it worked with Caon Design, chef Neil Perry and the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre on the aircraft’s cabin, which includes a Wellbeing Zone with sculpted wall panels, stretch handles, guided movement content and a hydration station.

The cabin lighting includes 12 scenes — among them “Sunrise,” “Sunset” and “Awake” — designed around circadian-rhythm science to help passengers adjust to their destination time zone, the airline said. Qantas also said passengers in all cabins will have free Wi-Fi and Bluetooth audio connectivity.

A Caveat on Timing, and on Sustainability

Qantas’s fact sheet states that aircraft delivery, ticket sales and the start of service all remain subject to regulatory approvals and aircraft certification. No final approval from Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority or the FAA specific to the A350-1000ULR’s commercial operations has been publicly confirmed as of this writing.

Qantas has acknowledged that air travel is not currently environmentally sustainable given existing fuel sources. The airline said sustainable aviation fuel can reduce lifecycle emissions but does not eliminate tailpipe carbon dioxide output, and that SAF currently makes up only about 1% of its fuel use. Qantas has set a target of 10% SAF in its fuel mix by 2030 and roughly 60% by 2050, alongside an interim goal to cut net Scope 1 and 2 emissions 25% by 2030 from 2019 levels. Airbus says all of its in-production aircraft are certified to fly on a 50% SAF blend and that it aims to raise that to 100% by 2030.

Project Sunrise takes its name from Qantas’s “double sunrise” endurance flights during World War II, when crews remained airborne long enough to see two sunrises, according to Reuters.