{"id":608793,"date":"2026-09-23T03:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T03:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608793\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T03:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T03:14:13","slug":"qantas-project-sunrise-sydney-new-york-direct-flight-start-dates-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608793\/","title":{"rendered":"Qantas Project Sunrise: Sydney-New York direct flight start dates announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

The airline said nearly two million passengers had flown since 2018 on its direct long-haul services from Perth to London, Rome and Paris, from Melbourne to Dallas and from Auckland to New York.<\/p>\n

The airline said these routes had the highest customer satisfaction scores on its international network.<\/p>\n

Air New Zealand already flies from Auckland to New York direct.<\/p>\n

Air NZ in its latest annual report said it would use its Economy Skynest<\/a> on a newly retrofitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner from November for the New York route.<\/p>\n

The first Airbus A350-1000 ultra-long-range aircraft<\/a> for Project Sunrise flew to Australia in late July.<\/p>\n

The aircraft, with two Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 high-bypass turbofan engines, flew from France to Melbourne, taking about 19 hours.<\/p>\n

Qantas ordered 12 of the aircraft in May 2022.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Airbus A350-1000ULR first flight crew on June 1, 2026, for a test flight. Photo \/ Airbus <\/p>\n

They will have a range of about 17,900km and a \u201cwellbeing zone\u201d with a self-service snack station.<\/p>\n

The aircraft should be able to fly for up to 22 hours non-stop.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s expected the cabins will have six first-class suites<\/a>, 52 business-class suites, 40 seats in premium economy and 140 in economy.<\/p>\n

Airbus said the aircraft had a rear centre tank integrated into its structure, boosting fuel capacity by an extra 20,000 litres.<\/p>\n

New York is the second Project Sunrise route to be confirmed.<\/p>\n

Qantas expects to start Sydney-London direct flights in October next year.<\/p>\n

John Weekes<\/a> is a business journalist covering aviation. He also has experience covering consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The airline said nearly two million passengers had flown since 2018 on its direct long-haul services from Perth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[696,5432,138,17896,17629,70,6562,71,3331,299981,111,139,69,3263,4372,312,4497,34561,1734,299980,1533,2173],"class_list":["post-608793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-announced","tag-between","tag-business","tag-dates","tag-direct","tag-flight","tag-flights","tag-from","tag-launch","tag-mid2028","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-project","tag-qantas","tag-says","tag-start","tag-sunrise","tag-sydney","tag-sydneynew","tag-will","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}