For now, the longest commercially available nonstop flights take about 18 or 19 hours to complete, and they cover distances of between about 7,000 and 9,500 miles. These routes connect far-flung places such as New York City and Singapore, London to Perth and Auckland to New York City. There is no denying that these long-haul flights cover huge distances, but there are still some popular routes that most commercial aircraft cannot cover in a nonstop flight. Qantas Airways and Airbus have teamed up to try to fill this long-awaited niche, and their newly developed Project Sunrise aircraft is ready to do just that.
Project Sunrise is named after the 33-hour nonstop flights operated by Qantas between Sri Lanka and Western Australia during World War II. The project began in 2017 as Qantas sought the technology needed to complete 10,000-nautical-mile (11,000-mile) non-stop routes between Sydney, Australia and NYC, and between London and Sydney. Either route is estimated to take around 22 hours, and Qantas has not yet revealed which route it will choose to run first, although the plan is to eventually get up and running both NYC-to-Sydney and London-to-Sydney.
Airbus and Qantas completed the first experimental flight of the new A350-1000ULR in June 2026 out of Toulouse, France, where two pilots and a flight engineer hovered over the experimental aircraft for approximately four hours to collect data. Testing of this first ultra-long-range version of the A350-1000 is expected to last two months, and if all goes well, the final product should be ready for commercial flights by April 2027. Perhaps by then, the Republicans’ war to make gas expensive will be over, in which case this long-awaited nonstop route might actually be accessible(-ish) to the average person.
Check out the latest ultra-long-range Airbus
Although you might expect that the world’s longest-range commercial airliner would also be one of the largest planes you can fly on, that’s not the case. The Airbus A380 still holds that record and is capable of carrying 853 passengers. Rather than increasing the size of the aircraft to fit more fuel, the Project Sunrise aircraft use the same baseline as the A350-1000. In its standard configuration, the A350-1000 seats up to 480 passengers, but Project Sunrise’s A350-1000ULR has seats for only 238 passengers. This means increased space and comfort for passengers on such a long flight, but removing the seats has the added benefit of freeing up weight that can be allocated to more fuel.
The layout will include 140 economy-class seats, 40 premium economy seats, 52 business-class seats and six first class suites, which you have to imagine will be among the highest suites in the sky. According to Airbus, there will also be a “wellbeing zone” where passengers can walk and stretch throughout the flight.
Some say the future of aviation may be boring, but on this Airbus you’ll get at least 22 hours of mind-boggling speed. The A350-1000ULR is allowed to reach its long-awaited 10,000-nautical-mile range by adding a 20,000-litre (or 5,283-gallon) fuel tank to the rear center of the fuselage. The development of the ULR variant has increased the maximum take-off weight of the A350-1000 from 319 metric tons to 322 metric tons, which will help take up a good portion of that additional fuel weight.
Assuming all goes according to plan, Project Sunrise will offer the world’s first nonstop commercial flights over this distance, making travel to and from Australia significantly more comfortable, if not necessarily cheaper or faster.