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Somehow it seems appropriate that Qantas is setting up this service. After all, it still holds the record for the longest elapsed-time regularly-scheduled airline flight. From 1943 to 1945 for its “Kangaroo” service, it ran PBYs on regularly scheduled nonstop flights between western Australia and what is now Siri Lanka. Depending on winds, the flights lasted between 27 and 33 hours (yes, they really were nonstop flights - PBYs were camels). Passengers received a “Double Sunrise” certificate at the end each flight.
The current lightweights whining about a 19-hour flight in a quiet pressurized, cushioned seat and hot meal luxury are pikers compared to those who rode in the noisy fuselage of a PBY for 33 hours. Oh, yeah, the flight was scheduled to pass through Japanese-controlled airspace at night to minimize the risk that they would be shot down-as an added attraction the passengers got to worry about being intercepted by enemy aircraft.

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I’m not convinced that a reduction of a few hours is really that much of an advantage. Granted, it’s a few hours less that one is stuck inside the metal tube, but what really takes it out of you on that flight is being unable to sleep.

Keep the stopover, and find a way to give passengers a lie-flat bed. After all, it’s not as if the volume of a passenger increases when they do that, so it shouldn’t really be necessary to charge more.

Or is that the point? Economy class passengers must remain uncomfortable to ensure business class gets filled?

system

Has the “airport experience” become so intolerable, that ordinary people are willing to endure a 24-hour flight, just to avoid layovers?

Maybe we shoud investigate employing suspended animation, putting people into big triangular tubes, and shipping them via FedEX. Have a nice flight!

avi8tor.tom

Hmm . . . think’n bout the Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST). Back in 1935. Sleeper version of Douglas DC-2. Expect some folks today would gladly pay a bit more for a few hours of horizontal on some of today’s long haul flights.

3 replies

joe5

Especially if there’s room for two

1 reply

rick.durden

The DST was the original version of the DC-3 - larger, wider and with bigger engines than the DC-2.

keith

First paragraph hard to read.

bserra

???

Terry_Carraway

Modern business class seats are fully horizontal.

keith

Probably slots like that in airports in Japan.

Someone is thinking and trying.