Qantas Perth to London non-stop: light therapy, yoga to combat jetlag
Light therapy, yoga and face products; Qantas reveals weapons to combat jetlag on its first non-stop flight from Perth to London.
Feel like some “light therapy” during your between-flights shower at the airport lounge?
Jetlag-reducing lights, along with stretching classes in a “wellbeing studio”, are among the features that Qantas has unveiled in its Perth international transit lounge today as it continues to look for ways to limit the havoc to the body clock from super-long flying.
Ahead of tomorrow night’s aviation milestone where Qantas launches the first direct link between Australia and Europe, the airline has shown details of the lounge designed by Australian industrial designer David Caon in conjunction with the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre, who have also been doing research on countering jetlag.
The Perth lounge will offer “light therapy” in the 15 shower suites in a bid to help the body clock adjust to zipping across so many time zones. Jetlagged passengers can flick on bright light in the shower for 15 minute sessions, which is aimed at speeding up the adjustment the body clock to the new time zone.
There will also be a wellbeing studio with stretching and breathing classes every 15 minutes held by a yoga teacher. The classes themselves will take into account whether travellers have arrived in Perth and need to loosen up, or are about to head to London and need “calming and grounding”. There’s also a “refresh area” with face products and an open-air terrace for a hit of natural light.
With the inaugural Perth to London flight expected to take about 17 hours and Qantas having other mega-long routes on the drawing board, tackling the perception this is too long a time to spend in a plane has taken on significance. The new kangaroo route is a test of Qantas’s ambitions to expand into a slew of new ultra-long haul routes. The carrier has thrown down the gauntlet to Airbus and Boeing to extend the range of their next generation of long-haul planes to allow flights between the eastern seaboard and NewYork and London, as well as potentially Paris, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro from 2022.
Other carriers will undoubtedly be watching this unfold as they too put on ultra-long range flights. United Airlines, for example, launched non-stop flights from Sydney to Houston this year. Later this year, Singapore Airlines will bring back its Singapore to New York service, which is expected to take the title as the world’s longest direct commercial flight.
Charles Perkins Centre Professor of Sleep Medicine Peter Cistulli said the lounge — which is located in Perth’s T3/T4 integrated domestic and international passenger hub — was one aspect of the work to improve how passengers fared.
“We’ve worked with the University of Sydney’s School of Physics to create an airline-first bespoke body clock intervention using bright light to help kick start the adjustment customers’ body clocks. Applying light at appropriate times helps reduce the effects of jetlag,” Professor Cistulli said.
Qantas head of customer product & service, Philip Capps, said the lounge was designed “to help set our customers up to feel better throughout their journey”.
Not every flyer on the new kangaroo route has entry to the lounge. The lounge will be open to travellers on QF9 from Melbourne to London or QF10 from London to Melbourne who are flying business class, or have gold, platinum or platinum one status, oneworld emerald or sapphire, or Qantas Club membership. For those who don’t meet those criteria, there’s an outdoor deck in the terminal.
Annabel Hepworth will be flying as a guest of Qantas on the inaugural direct Perth-London flight tomorrow.
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