Richard Branson vows to deliver faster long-haul flights

Richard Branson has vowed to take on Qantas over its ultra-long-range Project Sunrise flights, but at much higher speeds.

Richard Branson joins a giant sushi train at Brisbane Airport on Thursday. Picture: Jen Dainer

Virgin Australia’s highest-profile shareholder has vowed to take on Qantas over its ultra-long-range Project Sunrise flights, but at much higher speeds.

Richard Branson was speaking at Brisbane Airport on Thursday after arriving at the domestic arrivals hall on the baggage carousel as part of a giant sushi train. The stunt — described by the 69-year-old as something he had always wanted to do — was ­intended to promote Virgin Australia’s new Brisbane-Tokyo (Haneda) route.

Sir Richard said he took his hat off to Qantas for taking on routes such as London-Sydney but promised the Flying Kangaroo would not have it all its own way. “They need competition; maybe Virgin Atlantic might compete, maybe ­Virgin Australia or maybe ­together we’ll give them a run for their money. We’re seriously going to look at that,’’ he said.

“We will,” added Virgin Australia chief Paul Scurrah. The pledge came as Qantas made final preparations for its second test flight, with a new Boeing 787-9 carrying 52 passengers to travel non-stop from London to Sydney.

Designed to gather evidence from pilots, cabin crew and passengers about the effect of the 20-hour trip on their health and wellbeing, it was due to touch down in Sydney by noon Friday.

A previous test flight from New York to Sydney took 19 hours 16 minutes, and trialled a “reverse time zone” theory to alleviate jet lag. Thursday night’s flight was planned along similar lines, with passengers encouraged to switch to Sydney-time before leaving London. Sir Richard said he would prefer to conduct ultra-long-range flights at a faster speed, using spacecraft technology such as that adopted by his Virgin Galactic venture. “Now we’ve ticked that box and are safely getting people into space at 3500 miles (5632km) an hour, we’re going to start looking at longer travel at very fast speeds,” he said. “It’s going to take a few years.”