Qantas direct flights vs stopovers
The era of globe-striding Project Sunrise flights won’t mean the end of stopovers.
By David Flynn, March 13 2026
This time next year, Qantas will be gearing up for the launch of its non-stop Project Sunrise flights from Sydney to London and New York, with Melbourne expected to follow suit from early 2028.
But that doesn’t mean the current network of stopover routes will be wound back – especially when it comes to the Kangaroo Route which connects Australia and the UK via Singapore.
Instead, Qantas sees direct and stopover routes as “complementing each other” says Cam Wallace, CEO of Qantas International.
This doesn’t just reflect the reality that some travellers prefer to break their journey rather than spend 18–21 hours in a metal tube, no matter how comfortable their seat may be.
Even in this comfortable doored business class suite, 18–21 hours is still a long flight.
The Airbus A350-1000 which Qantas will use for Project Sunrise “is not a large aircraft,” Wallace reflects.
“It’s not a 485-seat Airbus A380” which flies daily between Sydney and London, “it’s just 238 seats.”
That leaves enough room in the market for both flights, along with the third option of Perth-London.
“We’ll still have our A380 services over Singapore, where there are tremendous lounges and many people like the A380,” Wallace told Executive Traveller on the sidelines of a visit to Qantas’ recently-opened Auckland lounge.
Qantas' Singapore first class lounge offers a stopover in style.
“And then there’ll be Project Sunrise, and that’ll be clearly the quickest way into London.”
“We also have a really compelling hub proposition with our partner Emirates via Dubai, where they connect to 56 points in Europe.”
In fact, the prospects of Project Sunrise’s Sydney–London and Melbourne–London marathons have arguably been bolstered in light of the current Iran war, which has impacted long-established flight paths over the Middle East.
That’s because one possible flight path from Sydney and Melbourne to London is an arctic route up across Japan and Alaska, over the North Pole, then spearing down past Greenland and the edge of Norway to London.
Also read: Alaska Airlines to begin Seattle-Sydney flights?
Non-stop to New York
Qantas will also offer travellers several ways to travel between Australia and New York, and that’s before considering US stopovers with partners American Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, which joins Oneworld on April 22.
Qantas’ Sydney-Auckland-New York route will remain alongside Project Sunrise, Wallace says, because “it will be complementary to the direct services.”
“So when we start Sydney-New York, for example, we’ll offer two ways to get to New York, both for the local Auckland market as well as the Sydney, Melbourne and other (Australian) ports.”
The Sydney-Auckland-New York route will run in parallel to direct Sydney-New York flights.
The Project Sunrise premium
While the direct Project Sunrise flights will shave several hours off overall travel time, it’s less about the fastest way from A to B and more about having that entire block of time uninterrupted, to use as they see fit.
“We’re hearing from our customers a greater desire to go point-to-point,” Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said during a media visit to Airbus last year.
Non-stop flights allow plenty of uninterrupted time.
“And doing that in a premium and a comfortable seat is also something that customers are saying that they value, and they’re prepared to pay a premium for.”
That premium could be 20% more than Qantas’ stopover flights, Hudson said.
A similar model is already in place with what Wallace has called ‘Sunrise Lite’ flights: the airline’s longest single-leap routes “which are Perth to London, Rome and Paris, Melbourne-Dallas, Auckland–JFK, all these sectors around 17 hours.”
'Sunrise Lite': Qantas flights from Perth to Rome, Paris and London.
Eliminating ‘transit trauma’
Qantas has now added Sydney-Las Vegas to the growing roster of flights which “overfly hubs and go direct.”
Los Angeles is the traditional transit point for travellers headed from Australia to Vegas.
While that last leg of the journey is barely a one-hour flight, passengers typically allow 3+ hours for rechecking luggage, changing terminals and waiting for their connecting flight.
Direct Sydney-Las Vegas let you skip the LAX transit experience.
In the case of Qantas’ current Sydney–Las Vegas schedule, QF11 arrives into LAX at 6am and the next American Airlines flight to Las Vegas departs at 9:30am, with a total travel time of 18½ hours from Sydney to the slot machines.
The non-stop Sydney–Las Vegas service will not only slash 4½ hours off that, but eliminate all the headaches of that LAX stopover and ensure a consistent experience from start to finish.
Also read: Qantas preps new Classic Reward search tool
03 Mar 2023
Total posts 54
Personally I don't fancy Sydney to London or Sydney to New York non-stop but project sunrise only benefits Qantas' Sydney customers. Nobody in Brisbane or Melbourne is going to want to transit via Sydney for a non-stop flight, not with the hassle of having to collect and re-check bags on the return flight. You're just better off transiting in Singapore or Hong Kong or even Auckland, rather than Sydney or Perth. I'm in Brisbane and I'm just never going to backtrack through Sydney for anything - and be asked to pay a premium for it no doubt.
20 Nov 2015
Total posts 604
Melbourne will also have Sunrise flights to LHR and JFK in 2028 once more A350s arrive. Agree that there's little in this for BNE, you'd be better off flying BNE-PER-LHR, BNE-SIN-LHR or BNE-AKL-JFK. But SYD and MEL are the biggest markets by far so nobody can blame QF for making those business decisions.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Oct 2011
Total posts 488
In fairness, Qantas did tout the possibility of a BNE-LHR direct as one of the Project Sunrise routes a bit down the track. Certainly if the demand is there, they'd be foolish not to.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Oct 2016
Total posts 155
Absolutely correct. Even from MEL, QF often pushes you to join via SYD to head to LHR or US. Madness to attempt this. I've been burnt badly doing it, never again. But then all these decisions will only benefit Sydney. After all its Sydtas Airways.
20 Nov 2015
Total posts 604
Qantas has ordered 12 A350-100ULRs for Sunrise. Under an agreement with the NSW government the first service will be ex-SYD, either LHR or JFK, and you'd have to reckon the next service would also be ex-SYD. But that's just the first six ULRs, the next six are for MEL.
They've also said PER-LHR will be replaced by an A350 so perhaps this will become QF9 MEL-PER-LHR and then the QF10 return leg will feed into a direct MEL-JFK service. Either way, notions that Qantas will keep all its A350ULR jets for SYD routes are nonsense.
04 Dec 2013
Total posts 160
Sunrise is about O&D travel, not about connection opportunities.
If you're in Brisbane, you're not the target market. Qantas are never going to want to sell you a BNE-SYD-LHR ticket when they could send you via Singapore and sell the SYD-LHR leg at a premium.
19 Oct 2019
Total posts 9
This is fabulous !!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 May 2011
Total posts 364
QF11 hasn’t arrived in LAX at 6am for a very long time… it’s been an afternoon arrival since post Covid
20 Nov 2015
Total posts 604
It's going back to the old 11am-6am timetable from late October for NW26 season.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
21 Jan 2014
Total posts 334
Having just flown the direct charter service to Vegas, the extra cost of flying direct is absolutely worth it. The cost was nearly double that of going through LA or SF but will look for a direct flight anywhere I am going in the future.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
11 Nov 2016
Total posts 72
Please don't say this; you're only encouraging them
05 May 2016
Total posts 617
If sales of the one stop services plummet whatever QF is saying now the SIN-LHR service may not last for long.
I would love to try Project Sunrise flights but I would want to do it on Classic Reward return seats in Business/First, which I imagine will be hard to come by.
QFF
12 Apr 2013
Total posts 1616
It will be impossible - since "invention" of Classic Scam Qantas virtually stop releasing on Classic Rewards anything but cattle class. I managed to get Qantas First seats twice in my life and it was SIN-SYD. I NEVER was First to/from LHR or LAX
29 Aug 2017
Total posts 27
i'd rather take the stop over flights and relax rahter than be cooped up for 24hours non stop
QFF
12 Apr 2013
Total posts 1616
Those super-long flights must not have economy or even PE for health reason.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
22 Feb 2019
Total posts 7
Point to Point is great when the duration isn’t excessive and stopovers avoid LAX transfer for the likes of LAS, but Vanessa’s full of it if she believes ‘customers are willing to pay a premium (of 20%)’ - seriously! We’re not willing, we just may not have an option - but there’s always an option, and sometimes that’s a better one - ANA The Room won me over in the post covid qantas price gouge.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 Feb 2015
Total posts 408
Apart from Sydney, nothing is guaranteed from Qantas even though Brisbane and Melbourne are on the departures map.
24 Oct 2017
Total posts 6
Our company have 9 trips to UK per year flying SQ B.C , most of the guys prefer leaving Melbourne early evening , taking a room at Changi airport for a few hours sleep before getting the morning flight to LHR which gets in late afternoon, early enough to get to the hotel for a good nights rest before work the next day. On that basis, I would have to question the advantage of a “Project Sunrise” flight, what time is one going to arrive in London, would one feel up to doing a full days work ( if flight gets you in early morning ) after being on a plane for 20 hours , if it gets you in a late evening it would have meant leaving MEL at a terrible hour at night, so I’m not convinced about the commercial success of non stop flights . Yes we’ll probably give it a go , only to say we’ve done it , but even if it was an advantage for our group, the 20% premium wouldn’t be easily justified as non of our team is that time poor and secondly SQ Business class isn’t too shabby .
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