Opinion

Nonstop to New York or London is my idea of hell

Spending 20 hours in a metal tube is about as appealing as tinea.

Opinion

Qantas' new Project Sunrise features the longest commercial routes in history. Picture AAP

By John Hanscombe

July 28, 2026

It usually begins three hours into the flight. A gnawing restlessness and intensifying, often irrational intolerance for other passengers.

There's no reason for it but those people four rows ahead start to grate as they constantly open the overhead locker to retrieve yet another item they probably don't need. They seem to time it whenever passengers are told to return to their seats because of turbulence.

The burly bloke immediately in front of me has no idea that every time he plonks himself down, my knees take another hit as his seat back crashes into my tiny allocation of legroom. And the restless kid behind me is like a jackhammer, little feet kicking the back of my seat without pause.

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Even when the window shades are lowered, there's invariably someone plugged into a movie laughing uproariously, unaware that every guffaw snatches those around them from what little sleep they're managing.

The battle for the armrest. The person in the window seat with the peanut sized bladder, up and down like a bloody yo-yo. The snorer across the aisle who sounds like earthmoving equipment. I could go on and on. And on some more.

Flying long-haul cattle class for seven, eight or nine hours can be torture. No wonder everyone leaps out of their seats the moment the plane stops at the airbridge, even if they're not going to move for another 15 minutes.

So, for me, the prospect of flying nonstop for 19 or 20 hours from Sydney to London is about as appealing as tinea, even if the aircraft is configured to be a little more comfortable than your standard people mover.

When the Airbus A-350-1000ULR touched down in Melbourne on Friday after a nonstop 19-hour flight from Toulouse in the south of France, I struggled to imagine anything worse than being stuck in a airborne tin can for that long.

The flight was the latest progression of Qantas's crazy brave Project Sunrise, to connect Sydney to London and New York via an epic nonstop service, the longest commercial routes in aviation history. I won't be lining up to book a seat.

That's because I'd much rather enjoy a stopover on the way. A day or two in Singapore or Bangkok, to unwind and enjoy the local food, or a stopover in San Francisco to stretch the legs with a hike around Russian Hill. Planning an upcoming trip to Europe I'd even contemplated a Dubai sojourn but Donald Trump put paid to that idea.

If time wasn't an issue, I'd have happily taken Qantas's Kangaroo Route to get to London. That service in the late 1940s took four days from Sydney, stopping in Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta (now Kolkata), Karachi, Cairo and Tripoli, with overnight stays in Singapore and Cairo.

When the Captain's Choice travel company recreated the old Kangaroo Route earlier this year, I turned a deep shade of green. The 14-day all-inclusive luxury tour was my idea of heaven. The longest flight was eight hours between Colombo and Cairo, the rest were only three to five hours. The sticking point: it cost about $50,000 per person.

Call me old-fashioned but I still believe travel is as much about the journey as it is the destination. Sitting in a metal tube for 19 or 20 hours might get me to Times Square or Piccadilly Circus a lot faster but I'll take the stopover any day.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Does the prospect of a 20-hour flight excite you? Or fill you with dread? Are you a stopover person or do you prefer getting to your destination as soon as possible? What's the longest flight you can tolerate? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

Words byJohn Hanscombe

Four decades in the media, working in print and television. Formerly editor of the South Coast Register and Milton Ulladulla Times. Based on the South Coast of NSW.