Qantas has reconfirmed its plans to fly non-stop from Sydney to London, Paris, and New York City in just over 18 hours as early as 2024. Branded as ‘Project Sunrise’, the goal is to also market non-stop flights to Frankfurt, Cape Town, and Rio de Janeiro. The initiative had been shelved due to the coronavirus pandemic but the airline has announced that it is ready to finalize its purchase for an initial fleet of up to 12 ultra-long-range Airbus A350-1000 aircraft in early 2022.
In an interview with CNN, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said that the airline plans to revisit the development of these ultra long-haul routes in 2022, with an aim to launch in the following two to three years.
We still have Project Sunrise in the pipeline, which is our ability to fly from Sydney and Melbourne to the last horizon. Direct into London, direct into the east coast of the United States
Alan Joyce, Qantas CEO
“It will be a unique value proposition that no other airline in the world will be offering,“ said Joyce, adding that one priority is to replace its domestic fleet. “Once we finish that, which we’ll do early in 2022, we’ll revisit Sunrise and the likelihood is somewhere like 2024 or 2025 for the first aircraft arriving, given the delay.”
In August of this year, at a press conference following the announcement of the $1.24 billion loss for the fiscal year, Joyce spoke at length about the future of Qantas’ international flights. Although it had to be put on pause in 2020, Project Sunrise is still on for the airline, as they think there will be strong demand for direct flights to the UK and US, post-pandemic.
In December of 2019, Qantas chose a modified version of the Airbus A350-1000 to operate Project Sunrise flights. The plan is to operate flights primarily from Sydney, nonstop, to cities such as London and New York. Qantas has aircraft that can go the distance today but not with enough paid cargo to make money, and the modified A350 does make ultra-long-range routes viable.
Although the pandemic put temporary pause on the project and international travel in general, Joyce had already pointed out that people will prefer to move away from transit flights and in favor of point-to-point nonstop flights precisely because of Covid-19. Whether this will be a long-term trend or just a momentary thing, what does seem certain is that passengers will be happy to take long-haul flights again as soon as the restrictions end.
Qantas will restart its international flights gradually in December based on the country’s reopening plan. Australia’s border reopening plan, however, may change at any time. The airline wants to use Darwin as a refueling stopover for flights from Sydney to London to avoid making stops in Asia (the Perth flight was working well but the West Australian government was not being as forthcoming as the airline wanted). Qantas wishes to restart A380 flights by July next year and in the meantime operate to the US with its A330s modified for longer range.
It will be a while before the A350 is ready to take off, which means that transits at Singapore and Los Angeles will continue to be needed for ultra-long-range flights to London and New York.
