Opinion: Is Project Sunrise the dawn of a new era?

“Airlines have historically competed on network and frequency, but Project Sunrise competes on time. Cutting up to four hours off the journey from Sydney to London and removing the connection entirely is a different product, not an improved version of the existing one,” Brownjohn says.

“The strongest demand comes from business and premium leisure passengers who value the hours saved enough to justify a fare premium. This is where airline margins live. These services won’t replace one-stop flying; they’ll sit alongside it. The Australia–Europe market will always carry far more passengers on one-stop flights than on direct flights. Choice is the product, and it’s excellent marketing.

“The competitive consequences matter more. Direct east coast services erode the reason Middle Eastern and Asian hubs feature on these routes – the stopover. As aircraft range improves and fuel-use falls, more non-stop routes become more viable.”

Bookings won’t open until early next year, but if Qantas’ own figures are to be believed, the hype is very much real: intent to book rose from 58 to 70 per cent between February and May, with those premium travellers hitting 80 per cent. Does this mean, though, that Qantas’ one-stop flights through the likes of Singapore will go the way of the old Super Constellations? Not necessarily so – Qantas has made it clear that those transits will be here to stay for those passengers who want them, which will likely still be many, and CQUniversity’s Dr Steve Leib also thinks predictions of the doom of the Singapore stop are very much premature.

“I think a lot of people are viewing this as a sort of new beginning of nonstop flights and not worrying about the transit, and the seven hours followed by 13, or whatever it is. I don’t really see it that way,” Leib says.

“This is an amazing new feat, but I don’t see it as an operational game changer because we don’t really see that pattern elsewhere. Even Singapore Airlines, which flies from Singapore to New York non-stop, also has its transit flights that go there. Same thing with Los Angeles. They’re not trying to shift the market to non-stop flights; they’re actually identifying a new market that prefers them, prioritises them, and is willing to pay for them.

“I think it’s been really cool to see that project develop, and how they’ve brought it together, and even things like the flight routes and people getting very excited about that. It’s definitely an incredible collaboration of technology, desire, and capability. I think it’s great; I just am not sure if it’s the beginning of a new era of travel.”

The last question, then: will they stick around? Airlines chop and change routes all the time, and if Project Sunrise isn’t the money-spinner Qantas is hoping for, might the Flying Kangaroo decide to simply cut its losses and put those expensive new planes on shorter routes? Well, again, not necessarily – as Leib says, the demand certainly seems high right now, and the national carrier might not want to give up a major source of national pride so easily.

“I think the demand is there. I think the market is there, and it’s really focused on that opportunity. The variable that is making me hesitate to say one way or the other is … if they want to fill up the Project Sunrise flights, they can do it. The question is: Is the price that they charge to achieve that going to make it a sustainable operation? And that sort of remains to be seen,” Leib says.

“Once established, I think they’re unlikely to disappear, even if it’s not a profitable part of the route networks, simply because it’s also a huge point of pride and notoriety to be able to offer this for the first time in history. The attention around those routes and the value they provide, even if people don’t mind doing the transit flights, I think there’s value to that in terms of promoting what’s possible from Australia.”

One thing’s for sure: as perhaps the biggest project in Qantas’ history looms larger and larger over the next year, we can expect to hear a lot more about it.