Ready for a 20-hour flight?

The first times I flew to and from Australia was not in just two flights. I remember once that I began in Geneva, then Vienna, Bahrain, Shri Lanka, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and finally Melbourne.

This was a long and tiring trip, in different airlines and claustrophobic tube-like planes like DC8 and 707. How long did that trip take? I don’t even want making an attempt to remember.

Things have changed a lot since these days and the last time I went to Australia, the trip was in comfortable wide-body jet, but still was a long 15 hour flight between Sydney and Los Angeles.

This past week, I just heard that Qantas Airways has just announced that it will test its 20-hour direct flights from New York and London to Sydney as early as October 2019, using its employees as guinea-pigs.

Unless the airline as a plan to keep its passengers fully occupied or distracted for close to one day, they might all go crazy before they reach their final destination.

As for me, if I’m still adventurous enough to sample one of those direct routes, I’ll make sure to pick up a copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” that I’ve yet to read, and hope to break a record of my own in getting through “War” on the way in and “Peace” on the way out!