Qantas’ ultra-long-haul Project Sunrise has captured the imagination of the global aviation industry—and the flights will offer Kiwis living south of Hamilton a one-stop opportunity to get to London ‘that just doesn’t exist right now’, QF’s ceo international and freight Cam Wallace told delegates at the NZ Airports’ Hui in Wellington yesterday.
“Not since the Concorde has something transfixed the industry,” he says of the intense interest in the ultra-long-haul A350 flights, which will initially operate between Sydney and London.
The carrier will continue to operate complementary capacity with its A380 services via Singapore and London services via Perth, and as its network matures Wallace told delegates there will be more opportunities for Kiwi travellers. “If you look at the markets between Australasia and London, Auckland is the fourth largest source market, so we are expecting quite a bit of connecting traffic,” says Wallace.
QF hopes to build its SYD-LON Project Sunrise flights to daily before launching SYD-NYC.
He says QF will then have ‘quite a bit of optionality’ across its ultra long-range A350s, regular A350s and its 787 fleet.
“We’ve got 200 aircraft on order. We’re getting an aircraft pretty much every 12 days now, with those A220s, XLRs, A320s, 787s and A330s—so this is probably one of the most exciting times to ever be working at Qantas…”
