The first non-stop London to Sydney flight is coming - with challenges

On a stage at the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, the chief executive of Australian airline Qantas declares: "The tyranny of distance has finally been conquered".

Vanessa Hudson was in the French city last week to announce the world's first 20-plus hour flight route.

The airline first flew what it named the Kangaroo route between London and Sydney in 1947. At the time, it was an odyssey spanning seven stops and four days.

Those stops have been gradually reduced, with Qantas now stopping only once, in Singapore, on the way through.

But 80 years after that 1940s venture, the first non-stop flight between the two cities is set to take off from October 2027.

Using specially designed ultra-long-haul Airbus planes, Qantas expects to shave about four hours off the current journey time. It is expected to last around 22 hours.

The much anticipated - and delayed - breakthrough comes after a turbulent few years in the airline's history, and bosses are banking on customers embracing the premium but marathon flight.

"We feel really confident that this is going to be a success," Hudson tells the BBC.

Some analysts say it is a major milestone in aviation history. But is it really what people want?

Qantas has overcome some challenges to get this far - and still faces others.

The flight will save money on landing fees by eliminating a stop, but Hudson admits the longer flight has a higher relative fuel bill.

There are also fewer seats, nearly half of which (40%) will be premium economy, business, or first class.

To counter the increased risk of issues such as deep vein thrombosis which can occur from flying for such long periods, Qantas has increased the legroom in economy and also created a dedicated "wellness" space where passengers can follow stretching exercises on a screen and have a little more room to move about.

Hudson points to the success of the Perth to London route, saying "customers have been prepared to pay a premium" for that service.

Australian travel agent Karis Heemskerk is among the fans of spending more time on one plane to get to their destination faster.

The 41-year-old has taken the roughly 18-hour flight from Perth to London a couple of times, including with her husband and two children, and says being able to fly direct is "amazing" and an efficient use of time.

"I think the direct flights cut time and there is no risk of missed connections and the stress of your luggage being lost," she tells the BBC.

"Cons are that it can be gruelling and it is a long time for some individuals to be confined to a cabin. [But] overall, I'm a big fan of the direct flights."

However, some frequent fliers such as Tom Gill are less interested.

The 33-year-old cultural consultant, who is originally from London but lives in Melbourne, travels at least once a year to London plus other trips to Europe.

"I don't mind an airport stopover at all: the idea of sitting in a plane for 20, 21 hours non-stop would be quite unbearable for me," he says.

For Gill, the main factor is cost. Given the new route is expected to cost about 20% more than its current Sydney to London offering with a stopover, he doesn't think it will be a flight he'll catch anytime soon.

"To be clear, I'd try anything once. If it was cheaper I would definitely consider it."

Research from ABTA suggests an increase in the number of people who travelled from the UK to Australia in the past year, particularly among 18-24-year-olds.

"Australia is for many of us a bucket list destination," the UK travel industry body tells us.

But Bryan Terry, managing director of Alton Aviation Consultancy says demand for this sort of service is narrow - posing a risk for the airline.

"Qantas is targeting premium and time-sensitive travellers willing to pay a meaningful premium to avoid a Dubai, Singapore, or Los Angeles connection," he says.

Singapore Airlines currently has the world's longest flight - between Singapore and New York - and Terry notes the route proves people are willing to pay "significantly more" to eliminate a stopover.

Terry says Qantas is conquering "one of the last frontiers in commercial aviation".

"Every generation of aircraft has chipped away at Australia's isolation, but a non-stop Sydney to London or New York has always been just out of reach," he adds.

It's an effort that has been years in the making, but which has also faced several setbacks and delays.

The programme to develop the non-stop London to Sydney route, dubbed Project Sunrise, was launched in 2017 - around the same time as the first direct London to Perth flights were announced.

Previous announcements about the route launching have stalled, but the project now seems to be coming to fruition with the first of 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft being delivered to Qantas in April 2026.

These come with an extra fuel tank to help increase the plane's flying time to 22 hours, with cabin lighting and meal times optimised to minimise jetlag on arrival.

Airbus chief test pilot Malcolm Ridley says it has taken a relatively modest engineering change to adapt the aircraft for ultra-long-haul flights.

While the first 12 aircraft must be delivered to Qantas before other airlines can buy them, he says there has already been some informal interest in the modified planes from competitors.

"When the aircraft goes into service and people can see what it's capable of, we may see more interest," he adds.

The unveiling of the new premium aircraft and world-first route comes after a tumultuous first half of the decade for Australia's flag carrier.

In 2024, Qantas agreed to pay a A$100m ($66.1m, £52.7m) penalty to settle a legal case with Australia's consumer watchdog after it was accused of selling tickets for flights that had already been cancelled, affecting up to 880,000 consumers.

The next year, Qantas was fined a record A$90m following a years-long industrial relations dispute after it outsourced its Australian ground handling operations, sacking 1,800 staff.

The controversies and poor punctuality led to Qantas plummeting in the industry benchmark Skytrax Awards to rank the world's 24th-best airline in 2024, its worst-ever ranking and down from 5th just two years prior.

Hudson, who began her tenure as chief executive in 2023 by apologising for the airline's failings, says Qantas has been focused on rebuilding trust.

"It's been hard work in lifting on-time performance, investing in the customer experience and that's in all of our fleets, all of our networks," she says.

While she says customer satisfaction and the airline's reliability has come on "leaps and bounds", she doesn't ever want to say the job is done.

For this airline, Project Sunrise is another step forward in delivering more of what customers want - and many in aviation are watching closely.