What it was like to take the world's longest flight

I flew on Qantas' non-stop test flight from London to Sydney, which covered 17,800 kilometres in 19 hours and 19 minutes, including dinner with full alcohol service two hours after the 6am takeoff and lots of stretching.

Fiona CarruthersTravel editor

Nov 15, 2019 – 4.00pm

Email LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

Subscribe to gift this article

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.

Subscribe now

Already a subscriber?

Having flown 17,800 kilometres over 19 hours and 19 minutes straight, the burning question among the 52 crew and passengers on board test flight
QF 7879 from London to Sydney was: “How did you pull up?”

“It was a bit hard to sleep – I kept thinking, ‘I’m on an historic flight – how can I sleep?’ But I did drift off eventually,” said Qantas sleep research participant and mining industry consultant David Jamieson from the NSW Central Coast.

Fiona Carruthers has written and edited travel for the Financial Review for almost a decade. She has held senior roles with ABC Radio National, Deutsche Welle Radio, TIME and The Australian, and was deputy editor of Traveller.