Qantas’ Project Sunrise is no sonic boom, but an incremental ‘moonshot’
Designed in the space age in the 1960s concorde It was a supersonic aircraft that pushed the limits.
When it was introduced in 1976, public frustration with pollution, including noise pollution, made Concorde’s sonic booms decidedly unpopular. Confusion over cost and sonic booms limited Concorde’s utility to flying primarily across oceans, from New York to London, for example, and it became a niche product until it was grounded for good in 2003.
It’s possible that Qantas’ Project Sunrise could follow a similar trajectory, but in reverse: starting in a niche and then finding a broader market.
When it was announced in 2017, the 22-hour, single-point-to-point flight seemed like an innovation, solving a nearly non-existent problem: the need to fly from Sydney to London without hassling with stopovers.
The conflict that then erupted in the Middle East this year created a gap in consumers’ travel habits and airlines’ basic expectations.
The Iran war appears to have ended with the ceasefire signed this week.
But uncertainty does not disappear. It serves as a reminder of the increasing complexity facing commercial aviation.
For Qantas, the fate of Project Sunrise will depend on how well its management reads the market. The airline insists, with some evidence, that demand for non-stop travel from Sydney to London is greater than ever.
Research commissioned by Qantas shows that consumers’ willingness to book ultra-long-haul flights increased from 58 percent in February to 70 percent in May. Among premium travelers, this figure increased by 12 points to 80 percent during the same period.
The airline’s technological advances, from the development of an additional 20,000-litre fuel tank and AI-powered flight planning technology to dedicated “Wellness Zones” in the cabin and circadian rhythm research to minimize jet lag, all contribute to this “moonshot” bid, as CFO Rob Marcolina describes it.
To be clear, taking people on 22-hour point-to-point flights around the world is not the same as launching a supersonic jet plane.
Concorde was a completely new aircraft and cost $3.3 billion in today’s dollars to develop and build.
Despite all the fanfare, Project Sunrise is not a new type of jet but an adaptation of the existing A350-1000, more than 700 of which are already in service.
Benoit de Saint-Exupery, vice president of commercial aircraft sales for aircraft manufacturer Airbus, admitted the same.
Project Sunrise “is just an extension of an existing platform,” he said at a panel in Toulouse this week. [the existing A350 model plane]So this is not a major development, but a gradual development.”
But that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, especially at a time when aircraft manufacturers are facing a backlog of thousands of airframes.
De Saint-Exupery said taking on the challenge of producing the mega long-haul aircraft for Qantas helped maintain Airbus’ “engineering prowess”. Other airlines have also shown interest in the specially built A350-1000ULR model.
Project Sunrise pushes the boundaries of longer range and shorter flight times. It aims to revive the “better, stronger, faster flight” era of commercial aviation.
This is remarkable in an era of reusable rockets and satellite-powered super-fast internet.
Given how central long-haul travel is to Australians, and the true technological evolution that the Sunrise represents, it’s no surprise that the aircraft is such a source of pride for the airline.
How well Qantas reads the market and the moment it launches its new “monthly” travel offering will determine whether the mega long-haul airliner is a success.
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