London to Sydney Non-Stop: Qantas Schedules 19-Hour Test Flight

Canberra (dpa) - Australia's flagship carrier Qantas is preparing to carry out a non-stop test flight between London and Sydney, less than a month after flying a record-breaking ultra-long haul between New York and Sydney.

Qantas QF 7879 will depart London's Heathrow Airport Thursday morning and is expected to land around 19.5 hours later at Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport.

The 17,800-kilometre trip is the second ultra-long haul research flight Qantas has conducted as part of a scientific study into minimizing jetlag for passengers and improving crew wellbeing.

Qantas is repurposing a new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner for the test flight with maximum fuel and a restricted passenger and baggage load, and no cargo, to allow the aircraft to operate the flight non-stop.

It will carry around 50 passengers and crew.

This will be the second time in history that a commercial airline has flown this route non-stop. In 1989, Qantas operated a Boeing 747-400 ferry flight non-stop between the two cities, which took more than 20 hours.

Qantas started flying between London and Sydney in 1947, which initially took five days and six stops. Last year, it started the Perth-London route, the only non-stop link between Australia and Europe, which takes around 17 hours.

Last month, Qantas successfully completed the world's longest non-stop flight on a commercial airliner - from New York to Sydney. The 16,200-kilometre test flight took 19 hours and 16 minutes.

While the London-Sydney flight is over 1,500 kilometres further than New York-Sydney, the duration is expected to be similar due to prevailing tail winds, Qantas said.

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