Qantas Conquers the ‘Kangaroo Route’ with Record-Breaking 10,000-Mile Flight Planned for 2027
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As if we needed another reminder that we may truly be living in a golden age of aviation, Qantas Airlines announced they will begin flying nonstop between Sydney and London in October 2027. It completes a journey the airline has been working toward for nearly a decade and closing out what it has long called the final frontier of long-haul flying.
The route marks the first time the so-called Kangaroo Route has ever been flown without a stop from Australia’s east coast. In fact, when Qantas first connected Sydney and London in 1947, the trip took four days and seven stops — Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta, Karachi, Cairo, Castel Benito and Rome — before arriving in the UK.
“Since we first flew the Kangaroo Route in 1947, where we stopped seven times on the way to London, every generation of aircraft has taken a stop out of the journey,” said Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson at a ceremony in Toulouse, where the airline unveiled the first A350-1000ULR in Qantas livery. “Today, we’re taking out the last one.”
The aircraft making it possible is something of an engineering obsession. Built specifically for Project Sunrise, it carries an additional 20,000-litre fuel tank that extends its range to more than 10,000 miles and keeps it airborne for up to 22 hours.
That is a long time in the air by any measure, but Qantas has designed the cabin around that reality: the seating, lighting, meal timing and on-board programming are all calibrated to help passengers arrive in better shape than they would after a conventional long-haul connection.
“Eliminating the stopover saves customers up to four hours of travel time,” Hudson said. “This aircraft has been designed from the ground up for ultra long-haul travel, with a cabin built around science and combatting jetlag, with an onboard experience purpose-built for the length of the journey.”
Tickets go on sale in February 2027, and the daily nonstop flights will run alongside Qantas’ existing Perth–London and Sydney–Singapore–London services. For east coast travelers, the time saved versus a one-stop connection is up to four hours — but the more impact is losing the accumulated fog of a long, broken journey.
Qantas has been preparing its workforce for the aircraft’s arrival throughout this year. Forty pilots are already in A350 training alongside their existing A330 flying, using Australia’s first A350 simulator in Sydney as well as facilities with British Airways in the UK and Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong. By the time the twelfth aircraft arrives, more than 360 pilots and 1,200 cabin crew will be certified on the fleet.
Demand appears to match Qantas’ ambition. The airline’s existing nonstop long-haul routes have recorded the highest customer satisfaction scores in Qantas’ international network since 2018, carrying more than 1.7 million passengers.
Sydney–New York is confirmed as the next Project Sunrise destination after London, with a launch timeline to be announced next year.
