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Qantas is putting the final touches to its plans to fly between Sydney and London nonstop, using a revolutionary new flight-planning algorithm to save fuel, and it should be able this year to announce which aircraft it has chosen to operate the new route.

Qantas believes it has found the aircraft to operate the 21-hour flight to London – and also a slightly shorter 19-hour non-stop flight between Sydney and New York.

The airline “hopefully” will be able choose the plane by the end of this year, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told the Amazon Innovation Day conference in Sydney last week, as related by the Australian Financial Review.

Which plane will it be?

 

Qantas Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner

First, the distances:

Sydney to New York: 8633 nautical miles (15,988 kilometres).

 Melbourne to New York: 9002 nautical miles (16,672 kilometres).

Melbourne to London: 9124 nautical miles (16,898 kilometres).

Sydney to London: 9174 nautical miles (16,991 kilometres).

Only one commercial passenger plane can currently fly those distances without refuelling.

The Airbus A350-900ULR

The Airbus A350-900ULR – derived from the A350-900 – has an extended range of up to 9700 nautical miles (17,964 kilometres). This is achieved by integrating a modified fuel system, which increases the aircraft’s fuel carrying capacity by 24,000 litres without the need for additional fuel tanks. With a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 280 tonnes, the A350-900ULR is capable of flying over 20 hours non-stop.

The ULR in the plane’s title stands for Ultra Long Range.

Qantas flies Perth-London nonstop with the Boeing B787-9 Dreamliner, but Sydney-London nonstop would be beyond its range.

Another possible contender is Boeing’s coming 777-8. which will feature new GE9X engines, new composite wings with folding wingtips, greater cabin width and seating capacity, and technologies from the Boeing 787. It is said to be capable of flying 8690 nautical miles (16,090 kilometres) with 365 passengers.

Qantas has no 777s in its fleet but its commercial partner Emirates is the world’s largest operator of the type.

Boeing 777-9

Apart from the choice of plane, a key to the success of the new Qantas flight will be Constellation, a cloud-based flight planning algorithm that determines the most efficient route for an aircraft to reach its destination.

The system, developed by Qantas in partnership with the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney, is due to be rolled out to all Qantas aircraft by the end of the year and will save Qantas AUD 40 million a year in fuel, Joyce said.

Joyce told the Amazon conference Constellation had been tested on a Sydney to Santiago flight, on which it saved a tonne of fuel by getting a better flight path.

It would reduce Qantas carbon emissions by 50,000 tonnes a year, Joyce added.

Written by Peter Needham