As the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, air travel is coming back with a vengeance. And with this recent expansion in air travel, airlines have ambitious expansion plans. However there is an airline that stands out in this regard, and it is Qantas. Prior to the pandemic breaking out, the carrier had ambitious plans to connect the east coast of Australia to cities such as London, Paris, Frankfurt and eventually New York. This project would be known as Project Sunrise. With this ambitious project in mind, a lot of people (including yours truly) wanted to see if these ambitions would come to pass.
The Kangaroo Route
Project Sunrise was inspired by the old “Kangaroo Route” between Sydney and London. The route started in 1947 and just like how a Kangaroo would hop from one place to another, the flights to London would make multiple stops along the journey between Sydney and London. Initially it would take 58 hours to fly to London with stops in Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta, Karachi, Cairo, Castel, Benito and Rome.
However with aircraft like the 747 being introduced, it was reduced to one stop in Singapore and it continues to this day with the Airbus A380 or with a Boeing 787 with a stop in Perth. Despite this, Qantas isn’t the only airline to operate this route. British Airways also flies into Sydney via Singapore from London as well as Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar. Ironically, British Airways utilizes a Boeing 777 as opposed to an A380 unlike the Middle Eastern Carriers. However with the ranges of aircraft increasing over time, this gave Qantas an opportunity to do something bold.
Enter Project Sunrise
In 2017, Qantas announced Project Sunrise to connect cities from the east coast of Australia (Sydney or Melbourne) to Europe and eventually the US. Two years later, Qantas conducted a research flight from London to Sydney that took 19 hours and 19 min to complete. The results were positive when they were able to arrive 3 hours sooner than taking a one stop flight. This allowed Qantas to plan to start Project Sunrise with the A350-1000s in 2022 or 2023 but COVID delayed those plans to 2025. Qantas called this the “final frontier” of commercial flying.
As previously mentioned, Airbus eventually won the contract with an order of twelve A350-1000s as opposed to the 777-8 from Boeing. The A350 was already a star when it came to ultra-long-haul travel. Singapore airlines utilized a special variant of the A350-900 known as the A350-900ULR for flights to New York from Singapore. Unlike the A350s for Singapore the big difference would be that Qantas’ A350s will seat 238 passengers in a four-class configuration (6 first in a 1-1-1 configuration, 52 business class seats in 1-2-1, 40 premium economy seats in 2-4-2, and 140 economy seats in 3-3-3. Despite these ambitious plans, Qantas has some detractors.
Drawbacks
While Qantas feels like Project Sunrise is the next frontier in commercial aviation, it isn’t without its detractors. Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker isn’t too fazed by this fad as explained in an interview:
“It has a very limited market. Singapore Airlines launched the longest flights from Singapore. It was to the East Coast of the US from Singapore. It didn't dilute or collapse the market from Singapore to the same destination by other airlines. People want to get out to relax to walk and stretch."
Basically what Al Baker is saying is that most travelers would much rather stop at hub such as Doha or Dubai as opposed to taking a nonstop flight from point A to point B. In addition, in an interview with aviation journalist Andreas Spaeth, Emirates president Sir Tim Clark said this about ultra-long-haul travel:
“If high capacity airliners such as the A380s, 747s and A340s are gone with no viable replacement as demand skyrockets, fares will rise.”
In other words, if you have more smaller efficient widebody twinjets, eventually the price will go up due in part to not having enough supply when it comes to seats. It’s the main reason as to why Emirates are keeping the A380s until the 2040s. Lastly is the concern with oil prices. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, oil prices have skyrocketed and consequently airfares took off. If oil gets more expensive, then it becomes less affordable to fly, which will make it harder for airlines to fill in seats, similar to what happened after 9/11. So with all of this being said, what could it mean for Qantas going forward?
The Future of Qantas
With the emergence of Project Sunrise in the mid 2020s, Qantas won’t just stop at expanding. CEO Alan Joyce is planning for Qantas to fly to cities such as Paris, Rome and eventually US cities such as Chicago and Seattle (which I discussed last year). By utilizing their A350s for Project Sunrise, Qantas would be free to utilize the 787 Dreamliner on routes to those aforementioned cities. It’s an exciting time to follow Qantas right now and I’m curious to see if all of this will pay off.
Conclusion
Qantas has ambitious plans this decade to conquer the final frontier of commercial aviation through Project Sunrise. Personally, I don’t believe this will kill the hub-and-spoke system because passengers would still like a break in between flights if they want to travel from Europe/US to Australia in addition to providing cheaper airfares. But what do you guys think? Will Qantas make a big impact with their ambitious plans? Let me know in the comments below and keep looking to the sky!
Kudos to QANTAS for making a serious effort to compete in this tough market!!!