Qantas has already made its ambitions for the highly-touted Project Sunrise clear. Alan Joyce wants to, as he put it, “defeat distance” by cutting out layovers and introducing more non-stop long hauls like routes from Sydney to major destinations like New York, London and Paris. Those lofty plans are still a few years away from being a reality, powered by delivery of 12 specialised Airbus A350-1000 aircraft scheduled for 2025. Yet the wait hasn’t stopped Qantas Project Sunrise from already expanding its scope to include plans for non-stop services from Australia to four more destinations – Chicago, Miami, Cape Town and Sao Paulo.
As Joyce revealed this week to London’s The Times, plans are in place to include Chicago and Miami as the next big cities on Qantas’ wish-list, which should give the flagship airline a bit of a monpoly when it comes to direct ultra-long-haul flights.
Both Sao Paulo and Cape Town have also been floated as potential destinations in sight for Qantas Project Sunrise, although from the interview it seemed Joyce was prioritising the US cities. Considering the range of the new Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, it appears the Flying Kangaroo might actually be able to pull it all off in the latter half of this decade, swiftly revolutionising the way Australians travel and helping the country feel less isolated than it usually is.
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Once delivered in a few years, the new Airbus A350-1000 aircraft will reportedly have capacity for 238 passengers in total across four cabins. That will be split between six First Suites, 53 Business Suites, 40 Premium Economy seats and 140 Economy seats.
It’s not much of a surprise to see Chicago on Joyce’s radar as a Project Sunrise flight. Pre-pandemic, a direct service between Brisbane and Chicago was being planned on a Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner, but the ongoing lockdowns and border closures put the kibosh on the product just weeks before the would-be inaugural flight in April 2020.
Once installed, Qantas flight QF1 from Sydney to London will be the airline’s longest route and a landmark for Australian aviation. The flight is set to take 21 hours to cover 17,000 km, requiring that particular A350-1000 to be fitted with an extra fuel tank. The flight will leave Sydney in the evening and arrive in London the following morning. Coming back, QF2 will take wing from London just before lunch and arrive in Sydney late afternoon on the following day for a total duration of 20 hours.
