The most ambitious project ongoing in modern aviation is Project Sunrise. Qantas is looking to operate the longest flights in the world by 2027. The aircraft to operate such services has just taken off for its maiden flight in Toulouse: the Airbus A350-1000ULR.
In this post:
- The First Ever Airbus A350-1000ULR Takes Off
- Are The Delays Finally A Thing of The Past?
- The Official Qantas A350-1000ULR Configuration Revealed
- The New Galley Cooling System: Qantas Developed It And Airbus Will Benefit
- The Additional Complexity Of Operating the A350-1000ULR
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The First Ever Airbus A350-1000ULR Takes Off
The event is a truly special one. The very first Airbus A350-1000ULR has taken off for its maiden flight out of Toulouse, France.
This first aircraft is one of only 12 Airbus A350-1000ULRs ordered by Qantas. The Aussie carrier is the only one to have requested such a unique alteration to the A350-1000 project.
The aircraft temporarily registered F-WULR performed its first flight on June 2nd, 2026, flying for three hours and 46 minutes.
This will be the first of many flights that the aircraft will perform to gain certification to operate the longest flights in the world.
Despite it being based on the A350-1000 project, the addition of that massive additional rear central fuel tank that enables it to fly sectors up to 22 hours does change the way the aircraft handles and performs.
Also new systems that need to be installed to manage the fuel and weight distribution.
Are The Delays Finally A Thing of The Past?
Certification of such a complex piece of machinery was never going to be easy; however, we are far off the mark that Qantas and Airbus had initially set out for the first A350-1000ULR commercial service.
The initial plan was for these aircraft to launch in 2022. That’s right, 2022. Then, supply chain issues and certification bottlenecks and other events pushed back the first delivery to 2024, then 2025. Finally, now we’re sitting with an expected delivery in Q2 of 2027.
However, with the aircraft flying unless some major headwinds are hit by the project, as has been the case with the Boeing 777X, the Q2 2027 delivery time frame should be a realistic one.
The Official Qantas A350-1000ULR Configuration Revealed
| Travel Class | Seats | Layout |
|---|---|---|
| First Class | 6 | 1-2-1 |
| Business Class | 52 | 1-2-1 |
| Premium Economy | 40 | 2-4-2 |
| Economy Class | 140 | 3-3-3 |
| Total | 238 | – |
The seat layout and configuration of the A350-1000ULR is very interesting indeed.
The cabin configuration is, as you’d expect, very premium-heavy. Qantas’s A350-1000ULR fleet of 12 will be the only aircraft outside of the A380 to feature first-class cabins and suites.
Behind first class, there will be a very large business class cabin, followed by five rows of premium economy.
What really stands out to me is the fact that Qantas is not giving up on economy class seats on these flights.
A completely different direction, made possible by the capabilities of the A350-1000ULR to what Singapore Airlines has on its own Airbus A350-900ULRs, which only feature business class and premium economy.
I think both weight and passenger comfort were taken into account when designing the economy class cabin. Qantas has chosen to go with a 3-3-3 nine-abreast seat layout in economy class, whereas the A350 would also allow a 3-4-3 setup.
The reason I mention passenger comfort is that Qantas is installing its rows with a 33-inch seat pitch, which is quite generous in the modern aviation industry context.
The airline needs to walk a fine line between extracting maximum profits and not upsetting passengers who will be travelling in economy class for flights stretching up to 22 hours.
Qantas and Airbus do highlight that there will be well-being areas across the aircraft; however, you can imagine that, no matter how many well-being areas there are, being in an economy seat for almost a full day does have a very heavy toll on your body.
The New Galley Cooling System: Qantas Developed It And Airbus Will Benefit
This is something else, very interesting, that came out of the Airbus press release regarding the flight of the first A350-1000ULR, which will be heading over to Qantas next year.
Airbus used the A350-1000ULR as a guinea pig for some weight-saving developments to the A350 project.
Specifically, it developed a new galley air cooling system (NGAC), which will save up to 300 kg in weight on each aircraft.
This will increase the range for the A350-1000ULR reduce fuel burn, but Airbus is not going to install it only on Qantas’ aircraft.
This will become the standard setup for all new production A350s, meaning that Airbus will be benefiting from this new technology by upselling to all future clients.
Effectively, the Qantas A350-1000 ULR was a guinea pig and a testbed for this new technology, which Airbus will be benefiting from by selling it to other clients.
The Additional Complexity Of Operating the A350-1000ULR
The complexity of operating the A350-1000ULR is two-pronged. First of all, there are the handling characteristics that changed compared with the standard Airbus A350-1000.
The aircraft, to be able to fly non-stop between Australia’s east coast, Europe, and the U.S. east coast, has an additional rear center fuel tank installed.
That extra weight changes the weight and balance of the aircraft and therefore also its handling characteristics. Something crew will need to be trained on and also get used to.
Having such a massive additional fuel tank has made necessary a new system that manages automatically the fuel distribution across the aircraft to maintain the aircraft in balance.
It is likely therefore that there might be additional training required by flight crew to operate these aircraft, creating a sub-fleet of A350-1000s and pilots certified to operate them.
Then there is the crew management, which also becomes quite complex. You can’t just operate these flights as you would normal ULR sectors. Unions and workers will definitely push back on that.
There will have to be some special scheduling roster adjustments for crew operating on these extremely long flights.
As you can see, the idea of flying non-stop between Australia and Europe is very romantic, but it comes with a lot of moving parts and inherent complexities.