An Airbus A350-1000ULR aircraft operated by Qantas completed what is believed to be the longest commercial flight on record, landing in Toulouse on Tuesday following a departure from Melbourne. The flight lasted 24 hours and 24 minutes and covered a distance of 23,075 kilometers across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans without intermediate stops.
The specially adapted aircraft exceeded the previous commercial flight duration record of 22 hours and 42 minutes, which was established by a Boeing 777–200LR in 2005 on a Hong Kong-London route. The flight is part of Airbus’s two-month testing campaign that began in June and serves as validation for Qantas’s Project Sunrise initiative.
Qantas intends to deploy the modified A350-1000ULR aircraft on ultra-long-range routes, with plans to connect Sydney directly to London beginning in October 2027. The airline has ordered 12 of these aircraft, each equipped with an additional 20,000 liters of fuel capacity and configured to accommodate 238 passengers. The first aircraft is scheduled for delivery in April 2027.
The route modernization effort aims to substantially reduce travel time on what has historically been known as the Kangaroo Route to London, replacing the traditional five-day journey with a single nonstop flight lasting between 19 and 21 hours depending on routing and atmospheric conditions. A separate test flight conducted the previous week demonstrated the aircraft’s capability on an alternate routing, completing a Toulouse-to-Melbourne journey via the Indian Ocean in just over 19 hours.
The extended flight generated significant public interest, becoming the second-most-tracked flight ever on Flightradar24, with more than 3.6 million users monitoring its progress across Canada and toward its destination.
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