Qantas is bringing the A350-1000 to Melbourne

Qantas’ ultra-long range Project Sunrise Airbus A350 jetliner is coming to Melbourne.

Airbus has confirmed to Executive Traveller that the A350-1000ULR will embark on an epic non-stop journey from Toulouse to Melbourne as part of its ongoing test flight program.

The A350 will arrive in Melbourne on Friday July 24 (and before you ask, touchdown time has yet to be locked in).

The A350-1000ULR test plane is on its way to Australia.

And this could be the ultimate test flight, designed to take the A350-1000ULR to the limit of its 22-hour range and prove it has the legs to fly non-stop from Sydney to London, thanks to an additional 20,000-litre fuel tank.

This is key to unlocking a rannge envelope of some 18,000km – and the Toulouse-Melbourne flight is expected to tear through 17,000km of that.

The Airbus crew will strap themselves in for the world's longest test flight.

This A350-1000ULR test aircraft carries five tonnes of custom monitoring equipment, laced into over a thousand sensors via kilometres of orange cabling.

They enable Airbus to capture vital statistics such as fuel flow, pressure, temperature, ventilation and structural behaviour through every phase of flight.

The monitoring station on Airbus' A350-1000ULR test aircraft.

Seats are fitted with heat-emitting systems to mimic the body temperature of passengers, to check the performance of the air conditioning and cooling systems.

It’s all geared to creating a test flight that, from the aircraft's point of view, behaves very much like the real thing.

Inside the A350-1000ULR test aircraft.

“Flight testing a production aircraft adds a layer of extra pressure,” says Airbus test flight engineer Laurent Rossignol.

“You are sitting inside the actual product. The customer is trusting us with their future flagship.”

Airbus stress-tests every new type of jet the same way, culminating in a range-proving flight which pushes the edge of the envelope.

Read more: This Airbus A350 will soon make a record-breaking 24-hour test flight

At the end of the campaign, this particular A350 will eventually be gutted and turned into a passenger-ready Qantas plane with first and business class suites, plus premium economy and economy recliners.

Qantas' innovative Wellbeing Zone.

It’ll also be fitted with a unique Wellbeing Zone where passengers can stand and stretch on these non-stop marathons from Sydney to London and New York.

Read more: Qantas A350 gets Economy Plus, and ‘economy minus’

Qantas’ first Melbourne A350 flights

The first jet in the Qantas Project Sunrise fleet is due to arrive in April 2027 – and by October, it’ll be one of three red-tailed A350s making daily non-stop flights between Sydney and London.

But in the months between April and October, the A350 will be making far more modest and manageable trips as pilots, crew and airport teams get to know the plane, which is new to the Qantas fleet.

First up, the A350 will be darting between Sydney and Melbourne.

The first Qantas A350-1000ULR will make training flights between Sydney and Melbourne.

Yes, the plane designed to fly the world’s longest routes will be busy making quick 90-minute hops.

These will let Qantas pilots gain vital experience in the cockpit – on the taxiway, take-off and landing, and of course flying – for which these short sectors are ideal.

While these flights won’t be scheduled commercial services carrying passengers, there’s no doubt the presence of the shiny new A350 will cause a stir when sighted, especially from the Qantas lounges.

However, Qantas has indicated the A350 will make passenger flights to Auckland and potentially Los Angeles.

Read more: Qantas A350 early flights – Sydney-Melbourne, Auckland, LAX 

Melbourne’s likely long-range Qantas A350 routes

As previously reported by Executive Traveller, Melbourne is now unlikely to get its own non-stop flights to London or New York.

The airline has committed the first six of its initial order for 12 Airbus A350-1000ULR jets to Sydney-London and Sydney-New York flights, due to launch from October 2027.

But the second six aircraft – which will arrive from early 2028 through to late 2029 – are now earmarked to take over two of Qantas’ longest-range Boeing 787 routes.

“The planning assumption is we’ll put some of the A350s onto Perth-London (and) Auckland-JFK, because these are pushing the limits of the 787,” Hudson told a media briefing at Airbus HQ in Toulouse last month.

“That’ll then free up the 787s, enabling us to expand the network more broadly.”

Six A350s for non-stop Project Sunrise routes, six more to replace the 787s.

A slide in the airline’s presentation on the investment case for Project Sunrise underscores this, calling out six A350-1000ULRs being designated for “new point-to-point Ultra Long Haul”, and six for “network diversification.”

So where does Melbourne fit into this?

Hudson made a point of declaring “the A350 is going to be an aircraft that serves Melbourne, because we know that's an incredibly important market and premium market for us.”

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson with the airline's first A350-1000ULR.

And with the A350 being swung onto Perth-London, we expect this route will once again start at Melbourne – just as it once did with the 787.

In fact, we’d be surprised if Qantas didn’t use the occasion of the A350-1000ULR test flight’s arrival into Melbourne to announce something along those lines.

This would of course unlock the possibility of a cheeky Melbourne-Perth jaunt – which for Platinum-grade frequent flyers will begin at Melbourne’s Qantas First Lounge.

And there’s no doubt that any seat on the A350 will beat its Boeing 737 or Airbus A330 equivalent on this four-hour hop.

Perth looks set to see Qantas' new A350 first class.

Another possibility: once Qantas begins non-stop Sydney-New York A350 flights from late 2027, the current Sydney-Auckland-New York route could shift south to become Melbourne-Auckland-New York, initially on a Boeing 787 but later on the A350.

Qantas also has a second tranche of twelve A350-1000s due from 2028 – these won’t have the extra fuel tank or Wellbeing Zone, although they’ll retain the four-class configuration in what Qantas calls the A350-1000LR (for ‘long range’).

Although ordered alongside a dozen Boeing 787s to replace Qantas’ aging Airbus A330s, it’s not impossible to imagine some of the A350-1000LR jets moving onto premium routes like Los Angeles.

Could we see the A350 doing Melbourne-Auckland-New York?

The lure here is that the A350-1000LR will not only have more seats than the Boeing 787-9 which is becoming Qantas’ trans-Pacific workhorse, it will have an even higher number of premium seats, ranging from those six first class suites to substantially larger business class and premium economy cabins. 

More premium seats equals a larger share of the high-margin premium travel pie – and that's very much the current and future trajectory of Qantas, along with many other airlines.

Also read: All Qantas international flights moving to digital arrivals card