Last week, Airbus made headlines by operating a marathon nonstop test flight from its facilities at Toulouse Blagnac Airport (TLS) in the southwest of France to Melbourne (MEL) in Victoria in the southeast of Australia. This airborne odyssey captured the hearts and minds of both avgeeks and the general public, with the flight, which lasted 19 hours and 13 minutes, being the world’s most-tracked that day.
Now, the time has come for Qantas’s first Airbus A350-1000ULR to return from Melbourne to Toulouse to continue its flight test program out of Airbus’s facilities in the southwest of France. However, if you thought that the jet would simply be retracing its steps and flying home to the northwest, you would be wrong. Indeed, the return leg of this odyssey is instead seeing it fly the long way round to the northeast.
According to tracking data made available by Flightradar24, the Airbus A350-1000ULR, which bears the apt test registration F-WULR, took off from Melbourne Airport at 5:27 PM local time today. At the time of writing, it had just crossed the international date line in the South Pacific Ocean, and had been in the air for just over five hours. Incredibly, it still had a whopping 17 more hours left to fly.
This put its estimated time of arrival back into Toulouse at 7:45 AM local time tomorrow morning, which would give it an end-to-end nonstop flight time of a whopping 22 hours and 18 minutes. Much like the outbound leg, this special test flight is operating under the callsign AIB35LR. Qantas said that this pair of flights followed “extensive testing on the ground and in the air in Toulouse,” adding that:
“The return flight to Toulouse [departed] Melbourne on Monday 27 July as part of the Airbus flight test program. Two Qantas pilots [joined] the Airbus flight test crew on board for the journey back to France.”
As noted above, Airbus’ outbound test flight with the Qantas A350-1000ULR from Toulouse to Melbourne took just over 19 hours. The jet followed a fairly conventional flight path, flying southeast from France over the Mediterranean and the Middle East before crossing the equator between India and Malaysia. Thereafter, it retained a consistent southeasterly heading over the Indian Ocean and Australia.
The return leg, however, is taking a rather different shape. Indeed, as soon as the ultra-long-range widebody twinjet left Melbourne earlier today, it was clear that this particular flight would have a somewhat different flavor in terms of the route. It flew to the northeast after taking off, crossing the International Date Line just southeast of Tonga before heading out over the South Pacific towards French Polynesia.
While the exact nature of its route will become clear in the coming hours, you would expect the jet to loop upwards towards North America and cross the North Atlantic Ocean before approaching Toulouse from the northwest and touching down tomorrow morning. Qantas will fit 238 seats to its A350-1000ULRs: six first class suites, 52 business flatbeds, 40 premium economy recliners, and 140 economy seats.
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According to present fleet data made available by ch-aviation, Qantas currently has a grand total of 12 units of the Airbus A350-1000ULR on order. All of these aircraft will eventually wear Australian registrations with the classic ‘VH’ prefix, but, as the first example is still part of the Airbus test fleet, it will retain its French F-WULR registration for the time being. Planespotters.net notes that it used to be F-WZNK.
Qantas worked closely in collaboration with Airbus to bring the A350-1000ULR to life, with the Australian flag carrier and oneworld founder member saying that “the A350-1000ULR has been specifically manufactured by Airbus for Project Sunrise.” The airline plans to put its first nonstop Sydney-London flights on sale in February 2027, ahead of the delivery of the first aircraft (named ‘Vega’) in April of that year.
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