If you’re looking to travel and do nothing but, Qantas airlines has a new flight just for you. Not counting your flight to London or Perth if you don’t already live in the area, you will soon be able to take a 17.5 hour flight between the nations — the longest non-stop flight on the planet. Using the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, Qantas is hoping to help make Perth a gateway for Australians — and koalas — to other points west, shaving time off trips and creating more flights into other points in Europe like Paris and Frankfurt according to BBC News:
The 9,000 mile (14,498km) flight will take 17 hours.
Perth will be a hub for passengers from eastern Australia going to the UK, tourism minister Steven Ciobo said.
He also said the new service would boost employment and tourism in Australia, a sector growing three times faster than the rest of the national economy, and one that supports 580,000 jobs.
First direct flights from Perth to London will start from March 2018 and will go on sale on April 2017 @abcnewsPerth
— Laura Gartry (@LGartry) December 11, 2016
Sitting on a flight for that many hours is quite an experience. If you’re afraid of flying or find the entire experience uncomfortable thanks to the nature of air travel in general, sitting on a long flight just seems like a weird slice of torture where they end up serving you breakfast three times. And it’s only made worse if you can’t sleep.
But if you compare all of this to the old method of flying from Australia to England, it seems pretty reasonable:
“When Qantas created the Kangaroo Route to London in 1947, it took four days and nine stops,” Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce said.
“Now it will take just 17 hours from Perth non-stop.”
The service will begin in March of 2018, so go ahead and book those tickets now. Perth has some interesting things to see, but the best reason is the Bon Scott statue. In fact, I think that’s the entire tourism industry right there.
(Via BBC News)
