Qantas QF1 and QF2 non-stop Sydney to London flights, Digi Mart USA News (Sydney, Australia): Qantas has announced that its iconic QF1 and QF2 flights between Sydney and London will officially scrap the Singapore stopover as part of Project Sunrise.
From October 2027, the flights on the historic Kangaroo Route will become non-stop, marking a major change to a service that has operated for decades. Qantas has been operating QF1 and QF2 between Sydney and London for decades.
As a result, the airline’s existing Sydney to London via Singapore service will continue to operate with new flight numbers, QF5 and QF6, for customers who want a stopover.
The Kangaroo Route began flying from Sydney to London in 1947, when the journey took four days and seven stops. For almost 80 years, generations of Qantas aircraft, from the Lockheed Constellation to the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, have flown the route.
The new flights will be operated by a specially designed A350-1000ULR aircraft, which can fly for up to 22 hours non-stop thanks to an additional 20,000-litre rear centre fuel tank and enhanced systems. Travelers can expect to save around four hours of travel time compared with the current one-stop journeys between Sydney and the UK.
Tickets for the direct Sydney to London service are scheduled to go on sale from February 2027. Qantas Group chief executive Vanessa Hudson announced the first Project Sunrise route in June.
“Qantas was built on the belief that Australia’s distance from the rest of the world should never stand in the way,” Hudson said at the time. “The pioneering spirit of generations of our people has forged that path ever since, and today is the most significant step in that mission in our 105-year history.”
The first of 12 new aircraft was originally scheduled for delivery in late 2026. However, it has since been delayed due to supply chain issues and is not expected to arrive until April 2027.
Qantas said “the next four will follow in quick succession,” and three aircraft are needed to run a daily non-stop service on the routes.
In September, Qantas also confirmed it would launch non-stop flights to New York in 2028. Those flights will cut more than three hours off total travel time compared with current one-stop services, and tickets for the inaugural Sydney to New York service are set to go on sale from August 2027.
