The world’s longest flight has been put to the test, with an Airbus A350-1000ULR completing its first-ever nonstop test flight from France to Melbourne. The flight, which lasted over 19 hours, is part of a new milestone in ultra-long-haul air travel.
Record-Breaking Route
The plane has been developed to fly the Australian airline Qantas’ upcoming record-breaking route from Sydney to London, which will be the world’s longest non-stop commercial flight when it launches in October 2027. The scheduled routes could stretch up to 22 hours and more than 10,000 miles.
A crew of four Airbus flight test pilots and five flight test engineers put the aircraft’s systems through their paces on the flight from Toulouse on Thursday, including the extra 20,000-liter fuel tank that holds the fuel to keep it in the air for nearly a full day.
In other travel news, a new report comparing the travel freedoms of passports around the world in the 21st century shows that the status of the US passport has been in slow decline, with 36 countries now ahead of it in the ranking.
Original reporting: KRDO (Colorado Springs metro) — read the source article.
