Qantas Dreamliner: Perth to London flight is 17 hours of non-stop comfort ... and science

From the food to the beds and on-board light therapy, Australia’s first non-stop flight to London is easier than it sounds.

I’m five hours into a 17-hour flight in a carbon fibre composite tube and my vision is slightly blurry. My eyelids are heavy. It’s midnight in Perth, where QF9 took off, and 3am in Sydney, where I live. I am on the inaugural flight of the longest haul in the Qantas network: a 14,498km flight from Perth to London’s Heathrow. Others in the 42-seat business cabin are quietly chatting, watching TV or tapping on their laptops. Me, I’m anxious for the LED lighting on the Qantas Dreamliner to simulate sunset. I’m also very curious as to how I will feel when we land at 5.10am, having zipped across multiple time zones, but knowing the national carrier has worked with sleep experts, nutritionists and psychologists on how to best push the body clock towards the new time zone.

But will the science aimed at helping passengers like me avoid the full brunt of jet lag actually work?

The QF9 journey starts in the new international transit lounge at Perth. Having flown four hours and 25 minutes from Sydney that morning, and shifted three time zones already, I make a beeline for the shower suites, equipped with bright lights that can be flicked on for 15 minutes in a bid to keep me feeling alert. At this point, I can’t escape that I’ve completely ignored cardinal advice for surviving super long-haul travel: start well-rested. Last weekend, I ran a 48-hour ultra-marathon, where I stopped running for a two-hour rest break during each night, but got zero sleep as I was under floodlighting at an athletic track. Given I’m starting this ultra-long flight already weary, I’m stress-testing the research that Australian scientists have done on fighting jet lag and travel fatigue. The “light therapy” in the shower consists of two concentric light tubes on the mirror, one of which shines blue light; aesthetically, think Logans Run. I stare at it while I shower. It’s 4pm Perth-time and I’m hopeful that the melatonin production has been suppressed and I can delay sleepiness. I say no to the stretching sessions in the wellbeing studio.

The Qantas Dreamliner QF9 takes off from Perth on its first ever direct flight to London.

Shortly after 6pm in Perth, we board. I’m in seat 10F in business class. The seat is behind a galley that separates me from the first eight rows of business, where Qantas boss Alan Joyce, chairman Leigh Clifford, Qantas International boss Alison Webster, Trade Minister Steven Ciobo and WA Premier Mark McGowan are ensconced. This row is behind the bulkhead, with a particularly generous recess for my feet when I’m stretched out. Not that there’s any chance of the jetliner squeeze factor here as the pitch — aviation parlance for the distance from any point on a seat to the same point on the seat in front or behind, a proxy for legroom — is 46 inches. The seats in business are in a 1-2-1 configuration, which means everyone has uninterrupted aisle access. The cabin behind is the 28-seat premium economy cabin, with the much-touted ergonomically-designed leg-rest, where people are seated in a 2-3-2 layout. I immediately set myself up in my seat, plugging my iPhone and laptop into the charging ports next to me, then stowing the gadgets to the side of me in the ample storage area.

Because I’m in the middle column of seats, there’s a privacy screen between me and my neighbour. The crowd-pleasing seat can lean back into recline mode for takeoff, which I do when that’s announced. Because of Cyclone Marcus, the ride gets bumpy not long after takeoff, with the flight crew navigating us to smoother air eventually.

I could go on for hours about my 80-inch lie-flat bed but am trying not to succumb to the temptation to ask the cabin crew to attach the mattress topper to the seat just yet. Once we hit cruise altitude (in the Dreamliner that’s between 35,000 feet and up to 43,000 feet as the plane burns fuel), I turn to the control panel that can customise the seat. Not easily embarrassed, I soon have the seat reclining more fully.

The food, with orders taken well after the turbulence ends, is a treat. Research from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre has gone into the design of the menu. I opt for the tuna poke salad and the seared Cone Bay barramundi for the main. The entree has green leafy vegetables with the dish, aimed at boosting hydration. Other mains on the business menu included fried manchego and black bean tamale, chicken breast and beef fillet with soft polenta. Given there’s a self-serve food and beverage bar between the business class cabins, and staff handed out a bag that included lollies (and a Qantas Dreamliner baseball cap) to everyone boarding this flight, I’m not too worried about getting hungry. I glance at the drinks menu, which has been compiled in conjunction with sommeliers from Rockpool, but I’m grimly aware that good pre-flight advice is against too much drinking.

Joyce and Webster talk to a group of reporters in the galley, with both planning to stay awake for the first eight hours of the flight. I’m feeling a twinge of competitiveness and also envy because I know while they’re up for following the advice of the science, I’m struggling to comply with it because I really want to sleep.

The Dreamliner’s business class cabin.

Aware that falling asleep too early will see me already awake for too many hours when we touch down at 5.10am in Heathrow — with a full day ahead of us — I’m starting to look for distractions to keep me awake when we go back to our seats, where there’s a 16-inch video touch screen. Now 17 hours on a plane is enough time to binge-watch about 14 episodes of Married At First Sight (I did the calculations but can’t see the show listed on the in-flight entertainment system). Instead, I pull out the tray table from the side and perch my laptop on it so I can write this account for you. I have a new release film on in the background.

The plan is for the crew to keep the lights on for about the first six hours. The lighting is all part of a carefully-calibrated strategy, Professor of Sleep Medicine at Charles Perkins Centre Peter Cistulli had told me in the days leading to the flight. “The traditional formula is you get people on an aeroplane, you feed them, get them comfortable and then similarly at the other end, and then you have this kind of white space in the middle. But doing that on a 17 hour flight raises all kinds of question marks. So we had to kind of rethink that … In order to nudge people into the right time zone, we wanted to delay their sleep.” To that end, Professor Cistulli said, “we are using some lighting strategies to help us achieve that”. The verdict won’t be in until research from flyers wearing medical-grade gadgets to measure their sleep and other parameters start coming back in. This will allow for more research and finetuning of the approach. But my verdict at midnight Perth-time? Having the lighting on at this point is certainly keeping me awake where I would otherwise have drifted off to sleep even earlier, which would make adjusting to the new time zone harder. To be sure, I’m not entirely surprised by this. I own a collection of dawn simulation light therapy boxes (and a pair of glasses that emit a blue-greenish light) that I will occasionally use to trick my body clock on an ultra-marathon and know from experience this works to an extent.

An entree of tuna poke salad.

A main meal option.

My plan had been to stay awake until the crew put the LED lights to mimic dusk. But snug under the doona, my eyelids heavy and dropping every few seconds, I realise I simply can’t and reason that I’m quite capable of sleeping for the next 12 hours (I did this on a 747 flight from Johannesburg to Sydney last year, but I went into that flight suffering a much bigger sleep deficit).

I wake five hours later, before the lights mimic dawn over 15 minutes (also in the flight plan) and raid the self-service area for chocolate, before going back to sleep for another three or so hours. I’m not tired at this point — about 13 hours in — in fact I wake feeling better than have on other ultra long-haul trips. I’ve done Sydney-Dallas — once the king of non-stop flights at about 13,800km — a few times, even continuing onto the US east coast just 90 minutes later (but the jet-lag meant I hardly slept the night I arrived). The much-hyped passenger-comfort features of the Dreamliner help on this journey. The higher cabin humidity that means my night-and-day contact lenses, which I left on during the flight, don’t feel dry on my eyes. Boeing have cut the cabin altitude equivalent to 6,000 feet on the Dreamliner, compared to some 8,000 feet on other jetliners, which also helps.

It’s a couple of hours until we land in Heathrow. I busy myself on my laptop and the flight crew bring me some herbal tea. I contemplate ordering some of the mid-flight snacks on offer, which include a spinach and ricotta pastizi, smoked salmon and fennel sandwich and lamb rice pilaf, but decide to wait until breakfast. At about 14 hours, the caffeine withdrawal is setting in and I ask for a coffee. I turn the 16-inch screen back on and sit back to watch more TV. At about the 15-hour mark, cabin crew offer green shots and lattes in tiny paper cups, and I have one of each. Breakfast for me is a croissant and poached eggs with halloumi, kale and quinoa and yet more coffee. With an hour to go, Joyce gets on the PA to tell customers about the history of the kangaroo route, while eight minutes before descent, the captain announces that there have been congratulations from other air traffic coming in during this historic trip. We touch down at Heathrow as scheduled just after 5am. We’re escorted to the gates by emergency services vehicles as this flight is considered special. “The world has been watching us today,” Captain Lisa Norman says as we taxi in.

* Annabel Hepworth travelled to London as a guest of Qantas.