Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce upped the stakes in his negotiation with staff over the upcoming London to Sydney route, telling reporters there was “no shortage of pilots” ready to take on the assignment.

Qantas says it has chosen the A350-1000 for Project Sunrise flights and pushed back the deadline on whether to proceed to March 2020.

Qantas's second of three ultra long-haul research flights landed in Sydney on Friday 19 hours and 19 minutes after taking off from London Heathrow.

To mark the first of three Project Sunrise nonstop research flights from New York to Sydney, this story from the Australian Aviation archives comes from May 2018, when Gerard Frawley wrote about the experience of being on Qantas's inaugural Perth-London Heathrow nonstop service.