Sydney, Australia, Sep 23 (EFE).- Australian airline Qantas launch direct flights between Sydney and New York from mid-2028, a first for the country, the company announced Wednesday.
The 18-hour non-stop flight will cut travel time by more than three hours compared to current services involving stopovers, and the first tickets for the inaugural flight will go on sale in August next year, the company said in a statement.
The new route, from Australia's east coast to New York without a stop for the first time in history, is the second under 'Project Sunrise,' following the Sydney-London connection set to launch in October 2027.
The London route will become the world's longest scheduled commercial non-stop flight, following successful trials conducted in July involving a flight of approximately 20 hours.
Qantas first flew to New York in 1958 with stopovers in Fiji, Honolulu and San Francisco - it currently operates a daily service with a stopover in Auckland, New Zealand.
The new flights will be operated by the Airbus A350-1000ULR, an aircraft built specifically for Project Sunrise. It is equipped with an additional 20,000-liter fuel tank, enabling it to fly more than 16,000 kilometers and remain airborne for up to 22 hours.
The airline will take delivery of 12 of these aircraft, each with a capacity for 238 passengers across four cabin classes.
The test aircraft is currently in the final phase of its certification program and recently completed a record-breaking flight of 24 hours and 24 minutes between Melbourne and Toulouse, France - the longest flight ever undertaken by a commercial aircraft. The first unit will be delivered to Qantas in April 2027.
The airline highlighted that travel demand between Australia and the US continues to rise, with a 5 percent year-on-year increase in visitor arrivals from the US, while traffic to and from New York has nearly doubled since 2023.
Since 2018, Qantas has operated non-stop long-haul flights connecting Perth with London, Rome, and Paris, as well as the Melbourne-Dallas and Auckland-New York routes, which have carried nearly 2 million passengers, according to company data.
In preparation for the arrival of the new aircraft, Qantas pilots have already begun training on the first A350 simulator installed in Australia, and the airline plans to train more than 360 pilots and 1,200 cabin crew members for long-haul operations. EFE
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