When did the Ultra-Long Range flights started?
Even before Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad Airways launched their transatlantic flights, there were other several airlines doing Ultra-Long Range flying. Don’t forget the bigger the airline, bigger aircraft and longer routes. Yes, at the beginning were operated with a stopover for refueling on the way to the destination.
That was the case of Lufthansa flights, PrivateAir, Qantas and other well-established airlines around the globe. However, the first uninterrupted very very long flight as we used to name them was a flight departing USA and landing back to Australia. Qantas has completed this historic non-stop flight from New York to Sydney, the longest commercial air travel in the world at that time. However more and more airlines started to operated non-stop flights to remote places, and this record was broke several times from 2019 onwards.
Carrying 50 passengers and crew, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner arrived in Sydney on Sunday morning after a 16,200-kilometer journey that took 19 hours and 16 minutes, the publication said. Qantas Executive Director Alan Joyce, who participated in the flight, said after landing: “This is a truly historic moment for Qantas, a truly historic moment for Australian aviation and a truly historic moment for world aviation. “
Demand for air travel is growing rapidly, especially for very long distances, which is why manufacturers continue to improve aircraft performance.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects the global number of passengers annually to increase from 4.6 billion this year to 8.2 billion by 2037.
As we said, currently commercial aircraft could complete the New York-Sydney marathon with a full load. To give the plane the ability to travel this distance without interruption, Qantas took off with maximum fuel, only a few passengers and a few luggage. The purpose was the collection of data by a team of researchers who monitor, among others, the lighting, activity, sleep and consumption patterns of the passengers and the melatonin levels of the crew.
They also tracked the brain waves of the pilots, which were equipped for the flight with brain monitoring devices. The airline also plans to test an uninterrupted flight from London to Sydney..