Qantas Airways plans to begin offering the first non-stop commercial flight ever between New York (United States) and Sydney (Australia) by mid-2028, the airline said recently. The trip will take about 18 hours.
The flight will be the second route in Qantas’ Project Sunrise initiative, which will use the world’s longest-range aircraft for direct flights between Australia and the rest of the world. Qantas had previously announced that non-stop service between Sydney and London, England would begin in October 2027.
Flight time from Sydney to London will be about 22 hours, which will make it the most lengthy commercial passenger service. Currently, Singapore Airlines operates the longest non-stop service, which requires about 19 hours to fly from New York to Singapore.
Flying non-stop will shave about three hours off Qantas’ fastest current travel time between New York and Sydney, and about four hours off between Sydney and London, the carrier said.
Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson said in an interview that there was a growing number of Qantas customers who wanted to fly non-stop on ultra-long-haul routes.
“They don’t want to stop in the midpoint, and they are prepared to pay a premium to do that,” she said, adding that the airline’s existing service between London and Perth, Australia is its best “commercially performing route”.
Qantas flies non-stop from London to Perth, but is temporarily making a stop in Singapore on flights from Perth to London because of the conflict in West Asia, an airline spokesperson said.
Project Sunrise will use Airbus A350-1000ULR jets, which have been developed for Qantas. The jets, which have an additional roughly 5,280-gallon fuel tank, can fly up to 22 hours, Airbus said in a news release.
Qantas said it had ordered 12 of the planes, with the first one to be delivered in April. Hudson said she anticipated that it could take more than 2.5 years for the entire fleet to be delivered.
A test aircraft in July completed a non-stop 24-hour flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Toulouse, France, a world record for the longest distance flown by a commercial airliner. – ©2026 The New York Times
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
