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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsQantas tests 20-hour nonstop flights to see if passengers can bear it
Qantas Airways Ltd. will run marathon ghost flights from New York and London to Sydney, Australia, carrying just a few staff to see how the human body holds up on a 20-hour, nonstop flight before commercial service starts. Qantas said Thursday it will simulate the worlds longest direct flights with Boeing Co. Dreamliners as soon as October. The 40 passengers and crew, most of them employees, will undergo a host of medical checks and assessments.
Qantas is trying to roll out a network of super-long direct services connecting Australias eastern seaboard with South America, South Africa and North America as rising oil prices squeeze profit margins. The Australian airline wants to start direct flights connecting Sydney to New York and London as soon as 2022. Chief Executive Alan Joyce describes the services as aviations final frontier.
The services arent yet a sure thing. Qantas still hasnt decided on a Boeing or Airbus plane that can fly the route fully laden and without a break. And its not clear how passengers will tolerate living in the cabin for the better part of a day and night. The things we learn on these flights will be invaluable, Joyce said on a call Thursday.
Joyce said Qantas and the aircraft manufacturers were dreaming up cabin interiors geared toward surviving such marathon flights possibly incorporating bunks, child-care facilities and even somewhere to work out. Were challenging ourselves to think outside the box, he said. Would you have the space used for other activities exercise, bar, creche, sleeping areas and berths? Boeing and Airbus have been actually quite creative in coming up with ideas.
But later Joyce said Quantas had ditched those notions; instead, passengers will be given a space to stretch and have a drink of water.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-22/qantas-20-hour-nonstop-flights
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)Yeah. Your stretch time is when you get in an interminable line to use one of the 2 lavatories and the water will cost you $4.00. Welcome to the unfriendly skies.
brooklynite
(94,573 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)17 hours, Newark to Mumbai. Never, ever again. 20 hours is insane.
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)Visualizing that here!
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I was in United Economy Plus for the Chicago to Hong Kong flight, and they seated an XXXXXXL gentleman next to me who had an open wound on his elbow which encroached well into my seat along with much of the rest of him. I spent maybe 4 hours in my seat which I then abandoned, 3 standing in the galley, and the rest in a regular economy seat elsewhere. My wife was wondering if maybe I had jumped off.
Weird thing about the Joburg trip is that I don't even remember much about the flight out or the flight back. Total blank both ways, except for boarding and landing.
I tend to just exhaust myself before long flights to be able to sleep as much as possible.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)But it was well worth it.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Never again
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)The paintings shown online really drive home the point made above. Incredible work.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Have none of them ever been on a flight from, oh.. say.. NYC to Beijing (14 hours) or NYC to HK- 16 hours, or NYC to Singapore-- 19 hours!!
Tell Chief Executive Alan Joyce to sit in stearage on one of those flights even with the EXTRA LEGROOM.. He'll learn a lot.!! Dumb fucker...
DUH !!!!!!!!!
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Guy has been in the outback too long....
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)This guy is just too much..
Maybe he needs to 'get out' more.
ornotna
(10,801 posts)If I was in a medically induced coma. 20 hours in the air without escape from the kooks, no thanks.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)But later Joyce said Quantas had ditched those notions; instead, passengers will be given a space to stretch and have a drink of water.
Shit, we have that now, as long as everybody doesn't get up at once...
What an absolutely dumb rich fuck !!
912gdm
(959 posts)coach? no way in hell
no_hypocrisy
(46,114 posts)The 20-hour sojourn will not necessarily allow regular intervals of movement that prevent blood clots that pool in the leg veins.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,687 posts)1. Stand in line for 35 minutes for the scan/pat down, and then wander around the airport for 2 hours after a nasty expensive taxi ride from home, after getting up at 3 a.m. They have to dump their water bottles out.
2. They have to refuse to allow any carry on other than the small bag that fits under the seat in front of them.
3. They have to sit in the middle seat between a guy who's 6'2 300 lbs and a hyper-active 3 year old with absentee parents (the 3 yr old happened to me)
4. The movies are all old, commercial and limited.
5. no wifi
6. Goes without saying: plane food, and only open plastic glasses of half-filled soda, and only every 4 hours does the cart comes through.
(Can you tell I just did 6 plane rides, 2 of them 13 hours?)
7. They have to hold onto their own garbage until the last hour of the flight.
8. One or more bathrooms are "out of service".
9. at least 60% of the trip they're not allowed out of their seats
10. They have to stand in immigration lines and fill out useless paperwork, and then wait for baggage return, and another taxi ride to a hotel.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)in the last 22 minutes because they didn;t serve breakfast until 1 hour out...
Why do they ALWAYS do that?
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Fall in the hotel bathroom the morning of your flight, start bleeding profusely from your injured elbow and come up with an ad-hoc bandage with tape and toilet paper that won't look like you are hiding something, but will at least get you through passport control and security without them wondering why you are bleeding.
Try to "walk it off" on the way to the airport, as you notice a growing pain in your side, difficulty lifting your bag, and a dawning realization that you have an orthopedic injury of some kind.
Struggle to find a comfortable position to sit, while making sure you can deal with further bleeding.
Find out, after you get back to the US, that you have three broken ribs.
The weird thing about it was, coping with airline seating is not particularly any more difficult than coping with it while you have broken ribs. The marginal discomfort of the broken ribs is so insignificant that you feel pretty much the way you always do in an airline seat.
lindysalsagal
(20,687 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)Wow, he is really ruthless..... and brain dead as well...
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)I retired a few years ago and enjoying it...
But I fly internationally enough to know that this guy has never consciously flown 'steerage' anywhere.
Kashkakat v.2.0
(1,752 posts)JCMach1
(27,559 posts)If you have a connecting flight, you are in transit 24hr, or more.
An extra 4 hrs. would make little difference after you have already done 16.
I once did that direct flight on United. We had an emergency landing in Boston for a heart problem and then were delayed another 2+ hours on the tarmac in Boston due to Thunderstorms in DC. Total flight time? 26hr+ no break.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)JCMach1
(27,559 posts)I don't even think of anything under 8hrs. as a flight... just a bus ride...
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Flying from ROC-JFK-LGB is over too fast. I don;t even have time to get drunk..
Sapient Donkey
(1,568 posts)I get that extra 3 and 4 hours might suck, but in the end is it really that much difference?
I don't know how anyone can do anything more than six hours. I recently took some 4-hour domestic flights, and when it was all done I decided I would rather take a literal stagecoach than fly on a plan ever again.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Economy seating on long haul flights is often slightly, but noticeably, better than shorter domestic flights. Not always, though.
I pop on a blindfold, put in earplugs, and transport my consciousness to an infinite universe through which I can stretch out into another dimension.
Your consciousness is just a passenger in the cramped vessel of your body, just as your body is a passenger in the cramped vessel of the airplane. When your consciousness can deboard your body, just as your body will deboard the plane, then, Grasshopper, you can fly from Beijing to San Francisco as easily as taking a five minute Uber downtown.
JCMach1
(27,559 posts)my brain goes: thank the diety its not 16-24... easy peasy!
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Would you rather have two connecting flights of, say, 12 hours and 8 hours, with, say, five hours between them in Frankfurt between 4 AM and 9 AM; or one twenty hour flight?
pangaia
(24,324 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)That was the point.
Off hours in Frankfurt, and I will also add no preferred status with lounge access.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)nolabear
(41,963 posts)He copes well, but man, he says its grueling. On the return (he actually went to Bangalore, another four hours on) he had a ten hour layover in the Dubai airport and rented a sleep pod. Theyre pretty remarkable.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)The flight over wasn't too bad simply because I was psyched up for my trip. I didn't sleep though, although that was for the best because it allowed me to acclimate to the new time zone.
But on the flight back, after my vacation was essentially over, I lasted about 8 hours before starting to feel antsy. I watched three movies, listened to some music and read a book, ate a couple of meals and took a couple of trips to the bathroom. But you can only do so much. I felt pretty beat by the time we landed.
I would figure with a 20 hour flight, a coach setup would be impossible. You'd have to have fully reclining seats and enough space to move around without disrupting fellow passengers.
liberal N proud
(60,334 posts)Al business class with personal pods.
I once flew 14 hours in economy pluss because my company paid me $3000 to choose that option over business class. It was gruling in the 4 across seats.
MineralMan
(146,313 posts)It was doable, even in coach, and not that terrible, really. I got up numerous times to walk the aircraft's aisle, and so did just about everyone. Los Angeles to London is another long flight I've made a few times.
I could do 20 hours. I wouldn't enjoy it, but it would be worth it to get somewhere in a single pass. However, the airline would need to make it easy for passengers to get up and walk around frequently. No aisles blocked all the time with service carts, etc. A beverage station at the rear of the plane would be a good incentive, and was available on all of my long flights, with a flight attendant back there to hand out beverages.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)shouldn't be anywhere near 14 hours. I just checked its only about 9.5 - 10.
MineralMan
(146,313 posts)They were also in 1967.
DonaldsRump
(7,715 posts)If (a) there were only 40 passengers on a plane that is supposed to be carrying 350+ passengers like these so-called "test flights" or (b) in business class/first class.
Option (a) clearly is not testing real world conditions where the plane will be packed to the rafters. I'm not sure what they are testing and option (b) is super-expensive.
I've taken many 14 and 15 hour flights in both economy and business classes. If we're flying economy, we tend to break up a journey with a long layover (8 hours or more) and get a hotel room near the airport or ideally IN the airport to get some sleep and take a shower. That works wonders and is usually only a couple of hundred dollars for the hotel (which can often include free transport to and from the airport), which is far cheaper than a business class ticket. However, this assumes that I have the extra time and the extra couple of hundred dollars.
US carriers' idea of "economy plus" is nonsense. For example, we flew from Seattle to Seoul last year in Delta's "economy plus", and it was one of the worst flights ever and, at least for us, was definitely not worth the extra cash. By contrast, a few years ago, we flew between the US and Asia on British Airways, and the economy plus seating, along with a hotel break at a Heathrow hotel, made it quite decent.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,735 posts)A friend who is 5' 3" and who is going to Ireland today was bemoaning the lack the legroom. I'm 5' 10", and I thought that if she's complaining, they're really packing people in these days. Sadly, it's been a while since I've been anywhere.
brooklynite
(94,573 posts)Yavin4
(35,440 posts)Thyla
(791 posts)But Madrid to Adelaide please otherwise the connections I would need would negate the convenience.
Kid Berwyn
(14,907 posts)Last edited Fri Aug 23, 2019, 01:01 PM - Edit history (1)
Thats how passengers will feel.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)and only if it's first class.
tblue37
(65,371 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Or were those the Boeing equivalent of a "serving suggestion".
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)librechik
(30,674 posts)so...why not?
csziggy
(34,136 posts)TSA is not as aggressive, you can exercise, hear lectures, watch movies, eat great food, and have a relaxing trip. And if you pick the right cruise, it is cheaper than flying first class!
Of course I am retired and can spend that kind of time.