Australia’s flag carrier first flew to New York City in 1958, with stops in Fiji, Honolulu, and San Francisco. Seventy years later, it will officially fly nonstop.
Qantas announced on Tuesday that it will launch nonstop service between Sydney Airport (SYD) and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in mid-2028, the first-ever nonstop commercial flights between Australia and New York. Tickets are set to go on sale in August 2027. The roughly 10,000-mile flight will take about 18 hours, cutting more than three hours off today’s fastest one-stop options.
“New York has always captured the imagination, and for generations, reaching it from Australia has meant breaking up the journey somewhere along the way,” Vanessa Hudson, CEO of Qantas Group, said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Qantas confirmed flights between Sydney and London Heathrow Airport (LHR) as the first of its “Project Sunrise” routes, launching in October 2027. Project Sunrise is the airline’s long-running push to link Australia’s east coast nonstop with the other side of the globe.
The initiative dates back to August 2017, when then-CEO Alan Joyce challenged Boeing and Airbus to build a plane that could fly nonstop from Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane to cities like London and New York. In 2022, Qantas chose Airbus and ordered 12 A350-1000ULR jets.
This specially designed A350 carries an additional 20,000-liter (roughly 5,300-gallon) fuel tank, letting it fly more than 10,000 miles. Currently, the longest nonstop flight in terms of distance is via Singapore Airlines, with the carrier’s service between Singapore and JFK clocking in at roughly 9,500 miles. That flight uses an ultra-long-haul variant of the Airbus A350-900.
This past July, a Project Sunrise test aircraft flew from Melbourne to Toulouse, France, covering more than 14,000 miles in just over 24 hours. Qantas expects its first ultra-long-haul A350 delivery in April 2027, although Project Sunrise has been delayed before. The original 2022 plan called for the first flights by the end of 2025.
Each of the 12 Airbus jets will have just 238 seats, fewer than any other A350-1000 in service. That premium-heavy configuration includes six first-class suites (with a separate bed and armchair), 52 business-class suites with sliding doors, 40 premium economy seats, and 140 economy seats.
In 2019, Qantas flew a nearly empty Boeing 787-9 from New York to Sydney as a research flight, tracking passengers’ and crew’s sleep, melatonin levels, and alertness for more than 19 hours. Following that research flight, Qantas designed a “Wellbeing Zone” that sits between premium economy and economy, an open area with stretch handles, guided movement content on screens, and a hydration station.
“Flying these distances is only worth doing if our customers arrive feeling their best, and that belief has shaped everything we’ve built,” Hudson noted.
According to Qantas, demand for its New York flights has nearly doubled since 2023, while U.S. visitor arrivals to Australia are up 5 percent year over year. Currently, the airline flies between Sydney and New York, stopping at Auckland Airport (AKL), on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. A Qantas spokesperson said that the flight will continue even after the launch of a nonstop.
