Can Qantas’ Project Sunrise redefine long-haul travel?

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. On today's programme, we're looking to the skies and hearing about major developments shaping the aviation industry. First, we'll hear how Qantas is redefining commercial long-haul travel with the launch of non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York. Customers want that point-to-point proposition and are prepared to pay for that. And so it's been something which is a really, really important part of why we remain really confident about Project Sunrise is because this is not a leap of faith.

0:52And later, as the threats posed by wildfires all around the world continue to loom large, we'll meet the CEO of a company at the forefront of aerial firefighting. You essentially land the aircraft in the water, you keep the speed, you don't slow down, you keep the speed and below the floats are scoops. We open them up and in 15 seconds you have 3 ,000 litres of water in the tank. Then we take off again and we proceed to the fire. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:30You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Qantas has unveiled the aircraft that it hopes will redefine long-haul travel. From 2027, passengers will be able to fly non-stop from Sydney to London and to New York, journeys lasting up to 22 hours, making them the longest commercial flights in the world. But how do you keep travellers comfortable, healthy and willing to spend almost a full day in the air? Monocle's Petri Bertsoff travelled to Toulouse for the launch of Qantas Project Sunrise.

2:07It's a sweltering summer day in Toulouse, where Qantas and Airbus have just presented their new ultra-long-range aircraft. The Airbus A350-1000ULR will fly direct from Sydney to London and New York, crossing up to 16 time zones and staying airborne for as long as 22 hours. These will be the world's longest commercial passenger flights. And while they will save the passengers several hours of travel time, spending such a long time confined in a pressurized cabin with limited possibility for movement presents a unique challenge. That's why Qantas turned to sleep scientists for help. I'm Peter Sestuli.

2:47I'm a professor of sleep medicine at the University of Sydney. The biggest biological challenge of ultra-long-haul flying is the movement across multiple time zones. For this flight, we're talking somewhere between 9 and 16-hour time zones. And so the body was not designed to be able to cope with that because our internal biological clock becomes out of sync with the destination time. So to mitigate jet lag, you have to try and make a fast adaptation towards destination. There are a few things that we can use in our toolbox. the most important of which is lighting. The intensity and the timing of lighting can help shift our biological clock towards destination time and so that's exactly what Qantas is using lighting schemes to help people to be awake on the flight when they need to be awake and then to give them the protected sleep time during the flight.

3:46On the meal front meals also can regulate our clock, they're not as strong as light, but the content and the timing of meals can also help us adapt. So when we want people to be awake, we give them foods more spicy, chilly, that kind of option. Caffeine, of course, can be used strategically for that purpose. And then when we want to prepare people for sleep at the appropriate time, we give them more protein-based, low, not heavy, low-fat food prior to going to sleep. Exercise is the other big one. 22 hours on an aeroplane, a lot of immobilisation.

4:32Putting that research into practice fell to Australian designer David Kayon, who was tasked with rethinking how passengers spend their time on board. I suppose the major outcome of that research was the establishment of the wellness zone. So the wellness zone is a, is this, you know, initially we called it like the fourth space or a different space. And it creates a destination for passengers to be incentivized or inclined to get up out of their seats, move somewhere. And in that area, there is instruction for how to stretch and how to move your body. There's refreshments. We understood that the typical things that can be offered on an aircraft, like alcohol and those kind of things.

5:16They're still offered, but there's much more of a focus on wellness, hydration, refreshment, and helping the human body, I guess, cope with being in an aircraft for that amount of time. What kind of stuff can you do at the well-being zone? Is it yoga? Is there like a treadmill there? What's going on there? We played with all of those ideas. We did experiment with, and only in a design form, We experimented with having all of those services on offer. And as we tried all the different ones, we identified issues with them that would make them not really viable as legitimate or as viable offerings to put in that area.

5:58The most important thing was having the space. So in the area itself, there are leaners. So there's nowhere to sit. You can lean against the wall while you have a refreshment, but those leaners, they operate as well as grab handles so that if you want to do a stretch or if you want to get up on one leg, it allows for that to happen. There are also purpose-built grab handles in the space that have been integrated into the designs of some of the monuments and furniture elements. And they're all there to assist passengers with that. But additionally, there are screens with guided instructions on them of how to move.

6:35as well as the central monument is a refresh bar and fridge. So in an area where normally you see people on flights, they go there to move around and stretch at the door. So we've integrated into that space. So we've basically expanded that space. And it allows for six, eight people to be in that space quite comfortably and move around and take turns and have somewhere to go and circulate their blood flow. The wellness zone is just one of the innovations that characterize this new aircraft. A lot of features, from air conditioning to fuel distribution and cabin materials, have been designed from the ground up to make the aircraft lighter.

7:17Okay, I'm Patrick Duchet. I'm heading to the flight test and the integration test center. And some of these innovations that you made for this new aircraft, are they the kinds of innovations that you can also start using in other aircraft that are not necessarily the same model? of course when we develop whatever kind of functions you always think how you could reuse it on another product so yes we don't consider it as just a one shot on the ULR on the Surrise project but it could be later used for Nixella for whatever so it's up to the design office and at the end to customers to have an appeal for those kind of innovations that we would introduce there, and then that we could introduce on all the products.

8:03Flying nearly halfway around the world without stopping burns a lot of fuel. So can routes like these actually make money? I put this question to Richard Abufalia, an independent aviation expert and managing director at Aerodynamic Advisory. How tight are the margins to make these ultra-long-haul routes profitable? Well, they're a bit tight, you know. Well, I mean, for about six or seven years, Singapore did this route between Newark and Changi. And there was just enough fuel burn on that older generation of jets. They couldn't make it work. And it was a very similar story, about 1 ,000 nautical miles less in range.

8:43But then they introduced this very plane, the H350, and they could make it work. It just goes to show the threshold of margins there. What do you consider as some of the key innovations in this project? Well, you know, just being able to do the mission, you know, 10 ,500 nautical miles, something like that. You know, given what you have to do to the fuel tanks and the landing gear to support it, whatever else, that's pretty cool. But then, of course, just coming up with a cabin design that keeps people comfortable for all those hours. Because otherwise, they'll say, wait a minute, I need a break somewhere midpoint to stretch my legs.

9:18So you have to have people in the greatest position of comfort willing to tolerate however many 20 hours or whatever of flying time. Have other airlines expressed interest in something similar, ultra-long range? I read something about Turkish Airlines, potentially. Yeah, they just might. I mean, there are international long-haul carriers that are mindful of the sadly changing realities of international airspace. And, you know, people will simply look and say, yeah, range all we can get, please, given these changing circumstances. And Turkish is one of the fastest growth long-haul carriers. It's quite possible that Singapore says, you know what, just for margins, just for a little bit of an extra load, maybe we'll go with this.

10:02You know, it's a niche market, but I can't believe they wouldn't sell a few more beyond just Qantas. Non-stop convenience comes at a price. But how much extra are passengers willing to pay? Let's hear from the Qantas CEO, Vanessa Hudson. What we have seen from the routes that our business case for Project Sunrise has been based off is what we're getting today as a premium for that point-to-point. So Perth, London, Auckland, JFK, Paris, Perth, Rome, those direct services get around about on average a 20 % price premium than what you would pay via a one stop in the Middle East. And so our business case is based on that.

10:50You don't need to believe more than this being a really good investment decision. And pricing though will vary over a 12 month period through different seasons and through different time periods as well. We will have classic plus and also classic frequent flyer seats available on Project Sunrise. And we will always be in a cycle of as well going on sale and offering great deals as well. And that will be no different to Project Sunrise. Overall, Qantas has 12 ultra-long-range aircraft waiting to be delivered. Where will they fly to? Obviously, we've got six aircraft that'll be dedicated to the ultra long haul.

11:36So that'll be Sydney to New York and also London. And then there's another six. Because this has got a better payload, which means that it's got better capability than the 787, we're going to put, the planning assumption is we'll put some of the A350s onto Perth, London, Auckland, JFK. 787 that's flying those now will be freed up and so one destination that we really hope fourth time lucky I'll give you the story behind that we've announced Chicago three times and it never got off because one time it was just before the GFC one time it was just before September 11 and the last time was just before COVID we hope fourth time lucky that Chicago will be on there and and there'll be many points in North America potentially South America Europe you know, potentially South Africa as well.

12:28And so we're really excited about what this is going to enable our network to extend by. Hudson is convinced enough passengers will want to pay a premium for point-to-point travel, despite increasing price competition from competitors, namely the golf carriers. Qantas' 17-hour Perth to London route, which the airline launched in 2018, is a case in point. The average yield uplift that we see on Perth, London is 20%. And that's across all cabins. And it is what we have used in the business case for Project Sunrise that we don't need to get anything more than that. And we have maintained that pretty much across all cabins from the first flight of Perth, London.

13:18And even in the face of competitive action in those early days of Perth, London, where we saw pricing activity from competitors or capacity activity from competitors or both, the reason why it didn't impact Perth, London and saw a degradation of that position is because customers want that point-to-point proposition and are prepared to pay for that. And so it's been something which is a really, really important part of why we remain really confident about Project Sunrise is because this is not a leap of faith. It's what we're getting today. And the market out of Sydney is four times the size of the market out of Perth.

14:05You pushed us, challenged us to the limits of what aviation does today. Cortis is all into new heights. The airlines are planning to operate the world's longest direct route. Whether travelers embrace 22-hour flights remains to be seen. But Qantas is betting that for many passengers, avoiding a stopover will be worth the long time in the air and the premium price tag. If the airline is right and can make it work financially, the age of ultra-long-haul travel is upon us.

14:43For Monocle Radio in Toulouse, I'm Petri Burtsov. My thanks to Petri for that report. And you can find out more by heading to Qantas.com.

15:03You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. As wildfires become more frequent, more destructive and increasingly difficult to contain, the demand for rapid aerial response has never been greater. A subsidiary of all-cargo airline Cargolux, Aquarius Aerial Firefighting draws on their decades of operational expertise with a purpose-built fleet to help expand the aerial firefighting capability in Europe and beyond. Equipped with amphibious floats, the aircraft can scoop water directly from suitable lakes, rivers and reservoirs, refilling tanks in less than 15 seconds before returning immediately to combating the fire.

15:42The result? A continuous cycle of fast, effective water drops that maximises impact during critical firefighting operations. Monocle's Chris Chermak spoke with Aquarius Aerial Firefighting CEO Viga Ketalapa, himself also a pilot who was in Bordeaux during the recent fires, about these unique aircraft, the challenges for pilots and the growing role of aviation in tackling Europe's wildfires. We are here in the Bordeaux region. We are stationed at Bordeaux Airport at the military side. Two countries have sent us here. Turkey is one of our customers. And in Turkey, we have nine aircraft. And they have sent two of them over here to help out France.

16:25Luxembourg has also sent one aircraft. So the state of Luxembourg has chartered one of our aircraft to help out France and is also stationed over here. It is very interesting already, just the way you're describing that, the fact that you're bringing planes from different parts of the world that you have. Just tell us about your company as well, just what you do. You are dedicated to aerial firefighting. Tell us what that entails. Okay, so just a little bit of history. We are now in business for about three years. We are a subsidiary of Cargolux Airlines. Cargolux Airlines is a Luxembourgish-based cargo airline.

17:01and we operate 30 Boeing 747s worldwide. The idea was born to add assets to the European fleet of firefighting aircraft. We know it's necessary. It is one of the bottlenecks, is equipment availability in fighting wildfires. We found that that was the thing to do when you are capable to do so. So 2024 saw our first mission in Spain. At that time with three aircraft. Last year, we flew with eight aircraft in Turkey, and this year we have nine aircraft in Turkey. And the aircraft that was the number 10, our number 10 aircraft, is the one that is now being chartered by Luxembourg to help here in France.

17:42It was actually a brand new airplane. Our airplanes are all brand new out of the factory, but this one was just delivered a couple of days ago and was registered urgently by the Luxembourg authorities so that it could help fighting fires here in France. And just describe the planes for us, if you could, Uyghur, the kind of technology you've developed. I mean, what makes a good firefighting plane? Presumably it's, of course, different from other types of aircraft. OK, so this is the basic configuration is pretty much what you get off the line. It is a AirTractor 8802, and it is modified to be an amphibious aircraft.

18:22So it has two floats. And by modifying the aircraft to a float plane, there's also a scooping system installed. So what this airplane is made to do, the hopper, as we call it, this is the reservoir in front of the cockpit that normally it is originally an agricultural aircraft that holds the agents used in spraying for agricultural needs. That is all converted to pick up water during a procedure we call scooping. So you essentially land the aircraft in the water. You keep the speed. You don't slow down. You keep the speed and below the floats are scoops. We open them up and in 15 seconds, you have 3000 liters of water in the tank.

19:00Then we take off again and we proceed to the fire. Before I move on to what makes a good firefighting aircraft, we have given the aircraft very much an airline touch. We come from the airline industry, of course, and we wanted to achieve a significantly better level of safety as to compared what the industry has been doing before. Aerial firefighting, of course, in the safety spectrum is certainly at the other end as you compare it to a four-engine Boeing 747. So in terms of equipment, in terms of procedures, in terms of training standards, hiring standards, we have adopted airline standards as close as possible.

19:38and the cockpits are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. We have large flat panel integrated instruments. We have a traffic warning system that these aircraft have not seen before because like over here, we are working with a lot of aerial assets at the same time and we can all see them on the screen. So that significantly helps to reduce the risk of mid-air collisions. We have also in the meantime bought a simulator with all that equipment. This is the first simulator here in Europe where you can practice formation flying or formation flying firefighting with real firefighting missions, even able to measure how effective you are in your drops to extinguish the fire.

20:15But coming back to what makes an aerial firefighting aircraft as good as it can be, this aircraft is made for initial attack. Wildfires that are essentially already too big to control cannot be controlled by any means, neither on the ground nor from the air. And this particular aircraft is essentially airborne. If it needs to be, it can be airborne anywhere between, let's say, 7, 8, 9, 10 minutes. And immediately proceeds to a body of water, land there, scoop, go to the fire, and then cycle between the fire and the lake all the time. Depending on the distance between the fire and the lake, I think the record is something in the region of 17 drops per hour.

21:01Multiply that by the amount of aircraft in your formation, and then you reach enormous numbers, easily something in the region of 50 ,000 liters an hour. That is this agility and scalability of this particular aircraft. And of course, it comes along with the importance of what we call initial attack. First fire, no hesitation, send these airplanes in, and kill it right at the beginning. Waiting is the disastrous part in wildfire suppression. It is interesting. Everything you described there, Uyghur, about the plane and how you've gone about this. Tell us, from being in Bordeaux right now, I mean, you're gathering real-world experience, obviously.

21:40This is something that you mentioned you started in 2024 with your first real-world experience. What have you learned from that? Are there things that you are having to adapt to either the planes or the pilots, for that matter, as you go about this? Starting with the pilots, so we started in 24 with a mix between pilots from our Boeing 747 fleet and aerial firefighting pilots with experience. This niche in aviation is so specific, it would be naive to assume that we could learn it all by ourselves. So we were about 50-50 in the beginning. And as we grew, we have essentially hired most of the aerial firefighting pilots from the outside.

22:21Now, what we learned is that our mix is paying off where the industry was potentially not as proceduralized as we are in the airline industry. And that is our contribution, essentially. So equipment and procedures we have discovered is what leads to very acceptable results. Now into the practical firefighting. Of course, this is for us. I'm a 747 pilot myself. This is an eye-opener. Lots of low-flying. Flying low in areas where you have masts, high-tension cables, windmills, valleys, downdrafts, updrafts, enormous turbulence. Fires are always accompanied by strong winds. Either the wind is present in a wide area, or sometimes even the temperature differences created by the fire creates the wind that feeds it.

23:14The turbulence that it causes is tremendous. We've already said from the beginning, we thought at least, what is the most important is to come home safe. We do need to extinguish fires. That's what we're there for, but we are not going to risk a life doing it. We are very selective with our pilots. We need a psychological profile that really goes exactly to that point and no further. So don't stop flying too early and certainly not too late. Just at the right moment. We can stay at home. We're not extinguishing fires. You're not taking any risk. That doesn't work either. So everything that we do in our business, which is in our case falls under European regulations called SPO, specialized operations, we are obliged to base everything we do on a risk assessment.

23:58We identify all risks and find all mitigations. And the pilots fit in there with their psychological profile. Wow. Now, I think your question was more about what have we learned in the field? Of course, learning the different types of fires, the regions where you fly, mountainous, or in this case, here in Giron, this part of France is very flat. But of course, the first thought of a flying safety manager, and that's what we are, is what then are the risks here? And the risks obviously are that that flat area here can give you a false sense of security and or a false sense of safety and that's of course wrong.

24:37There are many convective fires creating a lot of updraft, downdraft obviously and can have disastrous effects if you don't if you're not attending to it. So we have masts, antennas, high tension cables and so forth over here. The lakes are very useful here for scooping, but there are many shallow areas. When we skim across the water to scoop the water into our tanks, we are not even supposed to come too close to a sandbank. So we need to know all these things. When we look at the landscape in Turkey, very mountainous, very strong winds. It is very hot here in France, but it is of course very hot in Turkey all the time.

25:15Performance limits of the aircraft, the higher the temperature outside, the less engine performance you have. And so you need to be mentally prepared for that if you are in mountainous terrain. I remember my first fire in Turkey was last year near Hatay. This is close to the Syrian border and there was a strong 30-knot wind blowing off the Mediterranean from the west. And we were on the downwind side of a mountain range to the west of Hatay and creating enormous downdrafts while at the same time a huge fire was raging which was causing updrafts. So yeah, these are the moments when you realize that as a pilot, this is where everything you've ever done in your life come together to do it right.

25:56But every fire is new and adds new dimensions and new experiences. This is how you absorb it and become a more proficient pilot. Incredible stuff, Uyghur. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I had one final question going back to something you were saying earlier about recognizing that there is now a demand for what you do. Obviously, it's been brought into, well, extreme focus this summer with what's happening in France, in Bordeaux, where you are, and in Spain, for that matter, as well. But nonetheless, this seems like an industry that is in its infancy, is that fair to say? How would you like to see this built out over the next few years, whether that is through your own company or others that might be entering the field?

26:41Okay, it would be unfair to all the good players in the industry to say that it's in its infancy. Before we started, Europe had something in the region of 70 aircraft of our type already in operation. Most of those, certainly in the commercial part of the industry, were based in Spain. Some governments in the Balkans operate our type of aircraft. Of course, France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia have long relied on the Canadiers, the two-engine scoopers. Many countries have relied on helicopters for aerial firefighting for a significant amount of time. So infancy would not be justified. But your question about how I would see the industry developing is certainly modeling towards more proceduralization, industrialization, certainly in flight operations and equipment.

27:33And when I talk about equipment is really look at the risks and adapt your equipment. We had to analyze 177 accidents with this type of aircraft and we included the agricultural industry as well. Otherwise, we didn't have enough data. And we, for example, installed 10 and a half inch artificial horizons because we found out in mountainous terrain and in the smoke of the fire, I'm not talking inside the smoke, but the haze that it creates, pilots quite easily become disoriented. That's what we've put in. And that's what you just have to conscientiously invest in. And then comes the second part, and that is communications.