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A Qantas Airbus A350 touched down in Toulouse, France, after 24 hours and 24 minutes in the air since leaving Melbourne, marking the longest flight ever completed by a commercial aircraft.
The aircraft used for the test is a specially designed A350-1000 Ultra Long Range (ULR), which the Australian carrier plans to put into service on its nonstop Sydney-London route by 2027. Manufacturer Airbus has been running tests on the aircraft for the past two months, since June.
Fitted with extra fuel tanks, the aircraft remained airborne for 24 hours and 24 minutes without stopping, covering a route of 23,076 kilometers (14,339 miles) over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The great circle distance between Melbourne and Toulouse is 16,888 kilometers, meaning the aircraft flew a longer path than the most direct route between the two cities.
The aircraft departed Melbourne at 5:28 p.m. local time (7:28 a.m. GMT) on July 27, and landed at the Airbus factory in Toulouse at 9:52 a.m. local time on July 28.
During the flight, the aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 41,000 feet and a maximum ground speed of 662 knots. It crossed three continents, two oceans and 17 time zones, and passed through 19 Flight Information Regions (FIRs), which are areas of airspace designated for air traffic control purposes. The flight also included two sunsets and two sunrises.
The previous distance record of 22 hours and 42 minutes, set in 2005 by a Boeing 777-200 Long Range (LR) flying from Hong Kong to London across the Pacific, was broken. Separately, the longest non-stop commercial flights by duration remain those flown by Qantas Catalina flying boats during World War II, which lasted more than 33 hours.
Flight-tracking platformFlightradar24said the flight was the second-most-tracked in the platform's history, with 3.65 million people following the route live, behind only the final flight of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. The Melbourne-Toulouse flight also pushed an earlier Toulouse-Melbourne test flight by the same aircraft down to third place on the platform's list.
Qantas has ordered 12 modified A350-1000ULR aircraft designed to connect Australia's east coast to London and New York in around 20 hours, as part of the carrier's Project Sunrise plan for ultra-long-haul routes.
The first aircraft, which has an extra 20,000 liters of fuel capacity and can carry 238 passengers, is expected to be delivered in April 2027.
Direct daily flights between Sydney and London are scheduled to begin in October 2027.
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