I’ve just endured the world’s newest longest flight, a 10,100-mile, nonstop ultra-marathon from New York to Sydney. It took about 19 and a half hours, and was almost as demanding as that sounds.
The plane’s 40 passengers, including media, are all in business class. The six human guinea pigs at the heart of the research are seated on one side of the cabin. I want to do my own set of tests to see how my body is holding up. While I’m finding this regime fairly challenging — and I’m not even in a do-it-tough economy seat — I try to keep things in perspective. After I firstupcoming flight last week, one reader emailed to urge me into a stouter mindset. During the Korean War in the early 1950s, he said, he regularly flew 40-hour reconnaissance missions with crew rotations every six hours. “Man up,” the 83-year-old told me. Point taken.
The research on the passengers and crew will feed into Project Sunrise, Qantas’s plan to start direct commercial services connecting Sydney with New York and London. Other super-long flights from Australia’s eastern seaboard to South America and Africa might follow, Qantas says.On board, Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce tells me he’ll “absolutely” roll out this flight’s regime on his other long routes — if the science shows it helps.
My 14:30mins from DXB TO JFK was a marathon on board. 20hrs is crazy..
If you have a case of cold VBs and you drink one per hour, you’ll still have a few left over by the time the plane lands.
LMAO 1st world problem. I took a 2hr flight from Philippines to Narita, Tokyo, WITH AN 8 HOUR LAYOVER, then a 13 hour flight to San Diego, California... Wheres my opportunity to get paid $600 to write a filler article.
Im scared for my 10.5 hr flight now :( i suffered on the 7.5hr flight
We can tell u jook the flight
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I can’t believe I just wasted 5 minutes of my life reading this drivel
I've done SFO to Dubai at 16 hours. This doesn't sound much worse. Just one more movie.
Cctv of passengers as they disembarked:
Worse than a 12 hr initial flight w a 3 hr layover for the second 8 hr leg?
Jook?
jook
Did you proofread in that first 20 hour flight ?
I jook
Get rid of seats. Let people lie on their backs in bunks or japanese style sleeping pods.
An essentially empty plan only has 90 minutes of fuel left when it lands? What happens when 300 passengers with luggage are on board? No thanks
In this era of 'with technology, anything is possible', is there a clear explanation for why supersonic commercial flight, which was mastered decades ago, is never a travel option anymore?
A slight jet lag?
An airline is concerned about the effects on passengers for this long flight. The opposite of what is done to millions of coach passengers every day — shrinking seats, limited food, oppressive security rules, etc.
Why can't you even put up a pic of a representative airplane? That's not a 787. A Qantas 787 pic can't be that hard to come by.
Took Amtrak from Milwaukee to Seattle. No sleeping car. 42 hours. Never again.
Interesting.
So if there are lots of empty seats to use for isometric exercising... and no one will object to aisle dancing... and similarly good tasting wake up food is provided to economy passengers... it’s still stressful. Agreeing with the WWII vet: sack up.
I’ve taken a greyhound from Indianapolis to North Carolina. In 1998. This article is unnecessary
perrybruno_
Nice piece. I had a neighbor who flew long endurance missions on the B-36. Much slower than the 787, but crazy long times
Is Qantas planning to repeat the experiment but with test passengers in economy class instead of business?
The picture shows a B737, which has only 1/3rd the range of the long-range B787 that was used for the 20-hour flight.
A flight like this, the article reports, “...took off with its fuel tanks maxed out — about 101 tons.” It used all of 6 tons total to the destination. Is burning TONS & tons of jet fuel with exhaust directly into the atmosphere wise in the age of catastrophic climate change?
Spending 20-hours locked inside a small tube is not my idea of travel. If you want to spend that much time getting from point A to point B, then put me in induced hibernation, so when I ask 'are we their yet?', we will be. Other than that, I'll pass and head to the beach.
Used to do San Fran to Shanghai monthly for 13+ hours. Coach. It was exhausting. The only cool thing was coming home, I’d arrive before I left China.
Regularly did Dubai to Houston 16.5 hrs. It was physically exhausting.
dmrider I am sure they could have found 4 volunteers for the economy seats - and force them to sit beside each other for the full flight.
Spent 20 hours on a military flight once. What are they talking about?
Interesting article. Curious, what was the schedule of the flight crew? I assume they would swap out at some point?
fuckcancer56 My longest flight has been 14hrs from Dubai to Seattle. Business Class or Premium Economy would be fine, but I’d like to see the research data for Economy class passengers.
They’re going to buy planes for this flight from BoeingAirplanes after they just admitted they knew for some time of the problem in their planes that caused the two crashes taking 300+ lives 😳. Yeah, no. Would never get on another Boeing built plane again. 🤦🏻♀️
I cannot imagine a 20 hour trip in economy. 8 hours is hell! Regulations are needed. A flat bed seat for all on flights over 12 hours . You airline guy figure out how. Small apartments for first, and bunk beds for steerage.
I took the NY to Singapore direct flight (Singapore Air) years ago. I think it was a little more than 18 hours. It was all business class. You arrived in the morning. I went to the office by noon. Pretty sure I conked out early the first night.
Sounds great for business class travel but would like someone traveling in coach like cattle to write a similar piece and then get back to us
Biggest carbon footprint flight?
For the record: This tweet replaces an earlier post that included a typo. We regret the error.
I treated as a doctor a former FIFA President who travelled around the world all the time. At that time he was 70 something and use to stay awake all the time the first third of his flights making Crosswords Puzzles. It was amazing how active he was as he arrives at destination
dance macarena 🕺
Good for jew.
LondonAirTravel On a 737?
I wonder if u get in trouble for not spell checking being in the LA times,
First, I was so bleary-eyed after the flight, I mistook “j” for “t” on my keyboard...
I Jook?
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