Qantas flight QF7879, which took off with 49 people on board from New York, forged a historic recorded when it landed in Sydney on Sunday. The journey that took the Boeing 19 hours and 16 mins to complete is now officially the longest non-stop passenger journey ever made.
This same, was Qantas, first of the three “ultra-long-haul” journeys the airline has planned this year.
The flight was reportedly a kind of test drive before the airline officially rolls out flights for “marathon routes” from the United States and Britain to Australia.
A journalist among the 49 members onboard revealed that people onboard were instructed to stay awake for at least six hours after take-off. He added that they had to undergo various medical tests to see if they were coping.
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The motive behind the gruelling ride was to test how the human body responds to marathon rides. After six hours passengers were severed food a high-carbohydrate meal and had been asked to avoid screens. the lights on the plane were also dimmed to encourage them to sleep.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce called it “a really historic moment” for both the airline and world aviation.
“This is the first of three test flights that’s going to come up with recommendations about how we manage pilot fatigue (and) how we actually manage passenger jetlag,” he told reporters after arriving in Sydney.
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The plane covered a distance of more than 16,000 kilometres (9,500 miles) without re-fuelling.
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