Qantas’ London to Sydney flight: Almost empty plane flies direct as part of ‘Project Sunrise’
The 10,537 mile flight left Heathrow this morning
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Qantas is flying an almost empty nonstop flight from London to Sydney as part of the carrier’s “Project Sunrise”.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner left Heathrow this morning and is due to land in Sydney at 11.45am local time on Friday.
Qantas first flew from London to Sydney nonstop more than 30 years ago.
To recap our coverage, read the live blog below.
The lights of Nur-Sultan, capital of Kazakhstan are ahead. The city was known as Astana until this year, and before that Akmola. A refuelling stop here would sharply reduce overall fuel burn.
Five hours since departure, 2,641 miles covered, another 7,932 to go. Basically, London to Bali.
The aircraft is currently flying in a south-easterly direction over Kazakhstan. It's predicted arrival time in Sydney is 11.26am at present, according to FlightRadar24. This is its route so far:
Prediction of the arrival time has improved, according to Simon Calder: it's now in the 18-19 hour range, not much longer than Perth-London on a slow day.
The flight is crossing from Kazakhstan to China over the interestingly named city of Qoqek. (Think of the Scrabble points on a triple word score.)
The Qantas flight has covered almost 4,100 miles, the same distance as Manchester-Atlanta.
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