A 19-hour flight that travelled 17 800 kilometres from London to Sydney has become the longest commercial airline passenger flight both in terms of distance and duration.
According to CNN Travel, Australian airline Qantas completed a one-off research flight that carried about 50 people from London to Sydney nonstop.
The distance overtook Qantas's own record set just weeks earlier with another test flight from New York's JFK Airport to Sydney.
Both the London and New York flights are part of Qantas's "Project Sunrise" with the gal of introducing direct Sydney-London and Sydney-New York return services by 2022.
The plane carried 50 passengers on board flight QF7879 including Richard Quest. Four pilots were on the flight.
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About to leave LHR to go NON STOP to Sydney! #avgeeks flight will he record breaking!!
A post shared by Richard Quest(@questinny) on Nov 13, 2019 at 8:51pm PST
According to the publication, the aircraft departed London Heathrow at 6am on Thursday morning, flew over Germany, Russia, Poland, Belarus, Kazakhstan and China before heading south across the Philippines and Indonesia.
To make sure that everyone was comfortable, the guests were fitted with sleep patterns, movement, food consumption and use of in-flight entertainment.
Charles Perkins Centre - a University of Sydney medical research unit - and Monash University will look at how the ultra-long-haul flying impacts health, wellbeing and body clocks of travellers, the crew and pilots.
The airline’s CEO, Alan Joyce, said flying nonstop from the East Coast of Australia to London and New York is the final frontier in aviation.
“We're determined to do all the groundwork to get this right."
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we made it! Longest flight in distance and time. #qantas #avgeek
A post shared by Richard Quest(@questinny) on Nov 14, 2019 at 6:03pm PST
Qantas recently announced that the airline will cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 through a new aircraft.
Source: CNN Travel.