According to this news winging its way over from Australia, V Australia, which is the international arm of Virgin Blue, are expected to announce new non-stop flights to Perth from London in 2011.
This route would be the second longest in the world, with flight times of just 16 hours – a saving of 5 hours compared to the current shortest times, due to the fact that current flights to Perth need a change of aircraft. Even compared to existing sameplane flights to Australia, the non-stop service still offers a huge time advantage, as the routing is direct and there is no need to re-fuel.
This move will see the Virgin group continue its advancement as a truly pan-global company – although I hesitate to use the term ‘network’, since the airlines are each operated independently. An additional non-stop route between Sydney and New York will also be offered – another interesting development, as the majority of USA-Australia flights operate to west coast hubs such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It will be interesting to see what sort of fares are offered on this route – the economics of operating these ultra-long flights aren’t as simple as just finding a way to avoid an un-needed set of airport charges. For this type of flight, aicraft don’t just need extra fuel - they also need extra fuel to carry the fuel that they will need later on in the journey. For this reason, Singapore Airlines, which offers the current longest flight in the world between Singapore and New York Newark, operates a business-class only service, thus cutting down on weight.