By Andrea Hargraves 
Australian airline Qantas will finally launch the long-awaited extra-long flight Sunrise ProjectFrom Sydney and Melbourne, Australia to London, New York and Paris from mid-2025.
The news was revealed by sources for Reuters This Sunday, May 1, the airline is expected to formally announce on Monday, 2, its ambitious “Project Sunrise” flights, as well as an order for a fleet of 12 Airbus A350 long-haul aircraft.
Qantas will hold a press conference to “announce the future shape of its flight network”, with the venue already set, at the airline’s Hangar 96 at Sydney Airport.
The Airbus A350-1000, registered F-WMIL, was sent on Sunday by Airbus from its headquarters in Toulouse, France, to Perth, Australia, on flight AIB-151, which took 16 hours.
The jet plane was decorated with the Qantas emblem “Our soul flies moreAnd the words ‘#LongRangeLeader’ (Long Range Leader). This aircraft is likely to be parked inside Hangar 96 on Monday.
follow the # Airbus A350-1000 F-WMIL on a direct flight from Toulouse (France) to Perth (# Australia) for an illustrative trip of #ProjectSunrise With @flightradar24 . 🇦🇺 🌅 # how many
-> https://t.co/6wrNTQzJsr pic.twitter.com/EHX08pUg8jAir Toulouse (Frenchpainter) April 30, 2022
To handle direct flights of 18-20 hours – which will also rank as the world’s longest flight, both in terms of distance and time – Qantas will order a fleet of Airbus A350-1000s in a special edition ‘Ultra Long Range’. for airlines.
Before the pandemic, in 2019, the company had already carried out some road flights, with Boeing 787-9s, to test the feasibility and learn about the peculiarities of the operation.