On board the 19-hour Qantas flight from New York to Sydney

I’m dancing the Macarena in the aisle of a mostly empty jet plane as it hurtles past Las Vegas 10,972 metres up in the night’s sky.

This isn’t some bizarre dream – it’s a taste of what Qantas thinks will be the future of long-haul travel.

Passengers exercise on board QF7879 from New York to Sydney on October 19, 2019.Credit: James D Morgan/ Getty Images

At 7.43am on Sunday a factory-fresh Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner touched down in Sydney after completing an epic 16,200-kilometre, 19-hour and 16-minute non-stop flight from New York.

The time elapsed from the moment the jet's doors lock at JFK Airport to when they open Charles Kingsford-Smith is 19 hours and 42 minutes.

It's the first time a commercial airline has flown directly between the two cities - a longer journey in duration and distance than any airline route flown in the world today.

The trip is the first of three “test flights” set out to improve passengers’ health and wellbeing on journeys this long, and to ensure pilots aren’t too fatigued to fly them safely.

It comes as Qantas nears a decision on what it calls Project Sunrise - launching regular passenger services from New York and London to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the next few years.

Qantas flight 7879 lands at Sydney Airport on Sunday morning after flying 19 hours and 16 minutes from New York.Credit: Getty Images for Qantas

Five-and-a-half hours into the flight, passenger Laurie Kozlovic says he feels wide awake and comfortable.

“I’d normally watch a movie and have a glass of wine and my meal and then go straight to sleep,” he says.

The 50-year-old travels overseas often for his work for an environment services firm and is one of six passengers who were due to fly home from New York this weekend but agreed to be human guinea pigs on Qantas’ test flights instead.

“I think the lighting has had a reasonable effect … and the exercise was great; I came back from that feeling fairly invigorated,” he says.

They are all elements implemented by researchers from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre to see if they improve passengers’ mood, health and wellbeing.

The six tests passengers are completing alertness tests on iPads four times a day before, during and after the flight to measure how the flight affected them.

Easing the jetlag pain

Easing the pain of jetlag is a priority of the study. So when we take off from JFK Airport at 9pm Friday, New York time, the crew try to trick our bodies into operating at Sydney time where it’s already midday Saturday.

The cabin lights remain bright for the first six hours to keep us awake, and the meals served two hours in are spicy and light to invigorate the body (spiced tomato soup, green papaya salad, Jiangxi-style fish). Alcohol isn’t recommended.

Dr Tracey Sletten from Alertness CRC taking urine samples on board QF7879 to measure concentration of melatonin as an indication of circadian timing in flight crew. Credit: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

None of this works for me, and by three hours in my eyelids are heavy and I doubt if I can make the distance. But an in-flight exercise session in the rear galley led by Professor Marie Carroll, from Charles Perkins Centre, revives me.

Professor Carroll says the routines – completed four times through the flight – will improve metabolic health and maintain proper circulation to combat the risk of deep vein thrombosis.

We go through a quick succession of stretches, squats and then, yes, the Macarena arms-shoulders-head dance steps.

I feel enlivened after the exercise – maybe because it got my blood moving, or perhaps just the comic relief.

Either way, I can push through to around the six-hour mark (4.30am in New York and 7.30pm in Sydney), when the cabin crew serve a second meal of sweet potato soup and a rich pannacotta – a big serve of carbohydrates and cream designed to lull us to sleep. At the nine-hour mark, like most passengers, I'm out cold.

Not the usual experience

There are plenty of reasons why this trip is very different to what most travellers will experience if Qantas ever flies these routes.

For starters there are only 50 people on board – including 10 pilots and cabin crew – on a plane that sits 236 passengers. And we’re all in business class.

Passengers on board the Qantas flight.Credit: James D Morgan/ Getty Images

But Qantas says it will use the findings from the study to improve passengers’ experiences on all long-haul flights. On the proposed new ultra-long haul fight, it’s promised to install bigger seats and dedicated stretching areas for economy passengers.

“Some of these ideas will vary over time,” Qantas boss Alan Joyce tells me as we approach Sydney.

“We’ll be asking people what they think of it, what worked what didn’t work – and people are being measured too, so we’ll see there are real benefits.

"It will be all about choice ... but it makes a difference when we have the scientific evidence to prove what’s working."

The flight's crew is also under the microscope, with the four pilots' fatigue levels tested with brain monitors and operational tests to judge their performance.

A cabin crew member takes a reaction test on an iPad onboard Qantas' long-haul test flight. Credit: James D. Morgan/Getty Images for Qantas

Researchers from the Cooperative Research Centre for Alertness are also taking urine samples from the pilots before, during and after the flight which researchers will test for melatonin– a hormone that regulates the body clock.

That is part of research aiming to understand and manage pilot fatigue, and  help Qantas convince Australia’s aviation safety regulator that it is safe to operate flights this long.

Alan Joyce says this first test flight has already boosted his confidence the route is viable

In the cabin during the first of his rest breaks, Captain Sean Golding says the research is vital for airlines and pilots to understand the reality of operating such a long flight.

“It will show us… [what] we’ve got to do to ensure our health and wellbeing on the flight,” he says.

“We need to establish what the research says first, and then see if we’re in a position to make a better call on it.”

As we prepare for landing, I have to say I’m feeling better now than I was when I touched down in New York five days ago. The journey home was three hours quicker and it didn’t include a traumatic transfer through Los Angeles’ LAX airport.

After seven hours sleep, test passenger Laurie Kozlovic also says he's also feeling pretty good.

Alan Joyce, Qantas Group CEO, far right, with the flight deck crew and cabin crew at Sydney Airport celebrating after flying 19 hours and 16 minutes from New York to Sydney.Credit: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

"I thought I’d feel a bit more tired but I’m feeling pretty fresh," he says.

He admits he would have been reluctant to take a non-stop route to New York, "but having done it - no hesitation".

It will take a few days to really know whether any of us avoided the worst effects of jet lag. And the passenger and crew research will be ongoing, with a test flights from London and another from New York to take place by the end of the year.

But as we prepare for landing, Joyce says this first test flight has already boosted his confidence the route is viable. As for passengers accepting the idea of almost 20 hours in an aeroplane, the airline points out that its 17-hour Perth-London flight has the best customer satisfaction score in its network.

Qantas will decide by the end of this year whether to launch its Project Sunrise flights as regular passenger services, likely at some point in 2023.

The reporter travelled to New York as a guest of Qantas for the purpose of flying on its first Sunrise test flight.