Qantas’s Project Sunrise — the carrier’s plan to connect Sydney nonstop with London and New York — has encountered a fresh delay after Airbus flagged that the first custom-built A350-1000ULR will now arrive in April 2027, four months later than previously expected.
The European manufacturer attributed the setback to supply chain disruption affecting its A350 production schedule, a problem that has rippled across the industry since the pandemic. Qantas confirmed the revised timeline in a statement to NewsWire.
The aircraft, an ultra-long-range variant of the A350-1000 that carries an additional 20,000 liters of fuel in a rear center tank, is central to the Project Sunrise network.
Once delivered, the twinjet will allow Qantas to operate nonstop flights of up to 21 hours from Australia’s east coast to Heathrow and JFK, cutting up to four hours off current one-stop itineraries.
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“While the first aircraft delivery has shifted to April 2027, the next four will follow in quick succession, putting us back on our original schedule by November,” a spokesperson said.
The first airframe is already in the paint shop at Airbus’s Toulouse facility and is expected to begin test flights within weeks, Qantas said. Pilot training has started on simulators in Sydney.
The delay is the latest timeline adjustment for a program first expected to launch in 2023, before the pandemic pushed it to 2026 and now into 2027. Qantas currently operates nonstop service between Perth and London
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using 787-9s, a route that covers roughly 18 hours. Project Sunrise aims to extend that model to the longer eastern-seaboard gateways.
The airline has said the project’s name references the Double Sunrise flights flown by Qantas during World War II, which remained airborne long enough for crews to witness two sunrises.
