New Flight From Australia to London May Be Record-Breaker

Qantas plans 17-hour nonstop journey from Perth
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 12, 2016 10:55 AM CST
New Flight From Australia to London May Be Record-Breaker
A Qantas jet taxis on the runway at Sydney Airport in Australia.   (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)

Qantas' course from the UK to Australia has long been known as the "Kangaroo Route" as it means bouncing around to various places including Singapore and Dubai. But not for long. The Australian airline says it will be the first to offer non-stop 17-hour flights from Perth to London beginning in March 2018. The flights will take advantage of the long range of Boeing's 787-9 Dreamliner, to arrive in late 2017, which will also offer larger windows, self-service bars, and a kind of hammock for passengers to rest their feet. That's not a bad idea as the 9,000-mile flight could be the world's longest commercial flight by duration, reports the Telegraph. Air India's flight from Delhi to San Francisco covers 9,500 miles but takes less time at about 14.5 hours.

Some might consider 17 hours in the sky to be a form of torture, but it's a wink compared to the four-day journey through nine cities Qantas first offered in 1947, reports the BBC, adding that the Dreamliner's 236 passengers will now have time to watch 18 episodes of Game of Thrones or read a third of War and Peace. The flight is also slightly shorter than Qantas' one-time, record-breaking flight from London to Sydney, which covered 11,185 miles in 20 hours in 1989. "This is a game-changing route flown by a game-changing aircraft," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce says, per CNNMoney. "Australians have never had a direct link to Europe before, so the opportunities this opens up are huge." (Not up for such a lengthy flight? Try this 8-minute one.)

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