Australian airline Qantas will fly non-stop from Perth to London starting in March 2018. These are the first scheduled non-stop flights between Australia and Europe. Flight time is expected to be around 17 hours each way and services will be on the new Qantas Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. These aircraft will be configured for extra comfort on the long missions they will fly and tickets go on sale in April 2017.

Kangaroo Route

The route between Australia and the UK is referred to as the Kangaroo Route as the original flights had many sectors or hops. Qantas commenced flying internationally in 1935 and services to London were operated in conjunction with Imperial Airways, originally on land planes and then on flying boats.


Qantas started flying the entire route in their own right with Lockheed Constellations from 1 December 1947. Flights at this stage still had six stops en route. The advent of the Boeing 747-400 in 1989 introduced one stop flights between Australia and Europe with flights stopping off at Singapore, Bangkok or Hong Kong on the way.

Perth to London

This will be the longest flight operated by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Once Singapore Airlines opens Singapore to New York in 2018 and Qatar Airways opens Doha to Auckland in 2017, the Qantas flight will be the third longest in the world.

Passengers coming to Australia can stop in Perth for a few days before continuing on to the east coast. This will increase tourism in Western Australia. Qantas expect passengers from the east coast will fly domestically to Perth and connect to the London services there.

Overall Thoughts

Non-stop flights between Australia and Europe are a dream come true for the Australian people. New aircraft are reported in the Australian media regularly and their potential to operate non-stop to Europe always comes up. This is going to be an excellent and successful service! Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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