The ‘unique’ detail that makes new Qantas flights so groundbreaking

Qantas will launch its direct Sydney to London flights next year and some passengers will be lucky enough to fly a unique route never before done by an Australian airline.

The new fleet of specially designed Airbus A350s will cut up to four hours off the travel time compared to current one-stop services, and 20 per cent of flights will follow a new “north polar flight path”.

Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said the Project Sunrise aircraft have been designed to “overcome the tyranny of distance”.

The on-board experience also represents a fundamentally different approach to long-haul travel.

“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,” Hudson said.

The new flight path over the North Pole comes from Qantas’ brand new advanced flight planning system called Constellation, which was developed in collaboration with ⁠University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics.

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Speaking to SMH Aviation reporter Chris Zappone, Captain Alex Passerini, who is the Chief Technical Pilot at Qantas, said the new system allows the airline to calculate any number of flight paths.

“So what you’re going to see is that around 20 per cent of the time in northern winter the Sydney to London route will take a flight path that takes us over the North Polar region, and that’s not something that’s been done before from Australia,” Alex said.

“It gets done by other airlines in close proximity to the North Polar region, but not out of Australia. So that’s pretty unique.”

Passengers would travel over Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland before approaching London from the North.

“If you can imagine that. That just gives you a sense of what this system’s capable of, and what it’s opened up as far as some non-conventional routes. It takes a little moment to process.”

New research commissioned by Qantas showed Australians’ appetite for non-stop, ultra-long-haul flying has continued to grow, with intent to book rising from 58 to 70 per cent since February this year.

Since 2018, more than 1.7 million passengers have flown on Qantas’ non-stop long-haul services from Perth to London, Rome and Paris, and its Melbourne to Dallas and Auckland to New York services.

Inside the crew rest areas

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While passengers are grappling with the idea of being in the air for more than 20 hours, Qantas staff have already begun training.

Qantas pilots have commenced training on Australia’s first A350 simulator in Sydney and with British Airways in the UK, with 40 current A330 pilots making up the initial intake of Project Sunrise pilots.

In total, more than 360 Qantas pilots and 1,200 cabin crew will be trained to operate Qantas’ fleet of Project Sunrise aircraft by the time the 12th A350ULR arrives.

With crew in mind, Qantas also unveiled the new crew rest areas on the ultra-long-haul flights, which will be crucial in keeping the pilots and flight attendants alert.

The Airbus A350-1000ULR has a secret compartment next to the galley where the crew prepare meals for passengers.

There is a chair and a TV where staff can relax, plus a tray table, a mirror, a phone (so the crew are contactable), and a mobile phone charging port.

Hidden above this is another room that that contains a fully flat bed, for crew to sleep.

Qantas explained that four pilots will work on rotation for the mammoth flights, and they will have their own rest area, which has two seats and two bunk beds.