New Delhi, Mar 25: The first scheduled non-stop flight between Australia and the UK has touched down in London's Heathrow Airport, after a 17 hour, six-minute journey across 9,240 miles (14,875km) from Perth.
Qantas flight QF9, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with more than 230 passengers and crew on board, touched down at 5.03am at Heathrow on a chilly Sunday morning to a welcome from ground staff.
The landing marked the first commercial passenger jet journey direct between Australia and Europe and has been described as a “game-changer” by some in the aviation industry.
Chief Executive Alan Joyce has called the new Perth-London service a "game-changing route".
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Speaking at an event ahead of the inaugural flight, he said the earliest Qantas flights between Australia and the UK - known as the "kangaroo route" - had taken four days and involved seven stops.