You Can Now Fly Direct From London To Australia

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 72 months ago
You Can Now Fly Direct From London To Australia

Crikey! There is now a non-stop flight between Heathrow, London and Perth, Australia. Here's everything you need to know.  

Non-stop you say?

Yep. Previously, commercial flights from the UK to Australia involved a stop-off in Dubai.

Who's doing it?

Qantas. The plane is a swanky Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, topped up with enough juice for the 9,226 mile (14,848km) schlep. And around 200 passengers.

So how long does this flight take?

Just over 17 hours. That's around three hours less than previous flights. And considerably shorter than the journey passengers were taking in 1947, which involved seven stops, and took four days. (They were nicknamed 'kangaroo' flights.)

Perth: suddenly more reachable from London

What if I don't want to go to Perth?

The direct flight to Perth still makes onward journeys to the likes of Sydney and Melbourne faster.

Don't the pilots fall asleep at the joystick?

They've thought of that. There are four pilots, and they take shifts.

Were there some suitably stereotypical celebrations after the inaugural flight?

Yep.

Can I afford it?

Economy returns start from £793. We've seen more expensive flights to Aus than that. If you insist on flying business, it'll cost you more like £4,376. One Economy ticket it is...

Also read: Direct London To Amsterdam Trains Will Run From April

Last Updated 26 March 2018