Being awake at some ungodly hour, I switched on the radio to a local station in London which I wouldn't ordinarily bother with due to reception out here being poor at times.
Essentially it's just background noise for me, but when conversation came around to aircraft I paid attention.
They were following the progress of the first non-stop scheduled flight from Perth to London. Read on...
Quote:
The first non-stop flight from Australia to Britain has touched down at Heathrow. Qantas flight 9 from Perth, capital of Western Australia, landed at 5.02am after a flight that had lasted 17 hours and covered 9,050 miles.
The route took the aircraft over the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka, the southern tip of India, Oman, the UAE, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.
After a flight through the night, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner made landfall over Foulness Island in Essex, and flew over north London and Berkshire before landing on the southern runway at Heathrow.
Previously, all Australia-UK flights had stopped at least once en route to refuel. But improved technology and fuel efficiency means the 787 can cover the ground between Perth and London with a full payload without the need to stop.
The first passenger to emerge was Robert Williamson, a mining executive from Perth who had travelled in business class. He told The Independent: “It was surprisingly good - above my expectation. I feel really good.”
Peter Robinson, a builder from Liverpool who now lives in Perth, flew in economy. He said the flight was “good, quicker than I thought”, but described the food as “ordinary”.
“There were cameras everywhere on the plane,” he said. “All the presenters from Perth TV are here.”
Four pilots operated the flight, with Captain Lisa Norman in command. She told The Independent: “This is absolutely the pinnacle of my career.
“No one has ever done this before. I’ve flown into Perth lots, and I’ve flown into London lots, but I’ve actually never joined the two dots together before.”
CNN’s business presenter, Richard Quest, emerged from the flight to say: “I think they’ve nailed it. They have made what could be an extremely unpleasant experience into something quite enjoyable.”
Alan Joyce, the chief executive of Qantas, said: “This is a gamechanger. This is a historic moment for Australia, and historic for Qantas.”
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The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner carried than 230 passengers and crew
The Independent
The Guardian
Great Circle Mapper
Friends who now live in Perth make the journey back to the UK at least once a year and take flights which typically stop at Singapore or Dubai.
They tend to stop for 24 hours at these staging posts rather than hop back on the plane for another eight or ten hours of tedium.
I couldn't face the journey no matter how it was arranged!