Australian airline Qantas has experimented with an ultra-long-range non-stop flight. The flight, lasting 19 hours, uses an Airbus A350-1000ULR aircraft, designed for Qantas to operate some of the world’s longest commercial flights, and took off on Thursday from the Airbus production facility in Toulouse, France, bound for Melbourne. The project for this type of ultra-long-range flights without the need for intermediate stops has been named Project Sunrise by the Australian airline.
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These aircraft models have been designed to fly up to 22 hours non-stop on the company’s direct Sydney-London route, which is scheduled to start in October 2027.
The flightradar.com website reported that the flight departed Toulouse at 7:33 AM local time on Thursday, landing in Melbourne just over 19 hours later, at 10:46 AM local time.
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In a statement, Qantas said that four Airbus test pilots and five flight engineers participated in testing the model. The crew and aircraft will remain in Melbourne for the weekend, then depart for Toulouse on Monday, with two Qantas pilots on board.
Qantas’s chief technical pilot, Alex Passerini, stated on Friday that the return flight will last 23 hours, during which the crew will test various systems, from fuel transfer to air conditioning.
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