Qantas to revisit Project Sunrise at end 2021: Alan Joyce

Qantas CE Alan Joyce believes the carrier’s Project Sunrise initiative to launch ultra-long-haul flights will be even more viable in the post-coronavirus world. Joyce adds that the plan will be revisited at the end of 2021, potentially setting the stage to launch services from Melbourne and Sydney to London and New York. As the Covid-19 pandemic grew more severe, in May 2020 Qantas pressed pause on Project Sunrise. The initiative could have seen it order up to 12 Airbus A350-1000s. “We were pretty close…within a couple of weeks of placing orders for the aircraft,” says Joyce. He adds that Airbus would have provided a “specially designed version” of the -1000 “to allow us to do these sectors economically – and the business case looked really good.” “I’m optimistic that the [Project Sunrise] business case will still look good,” says Joyce. ‘[But] we’re obviously not going to put an order in for new aircraft until we see the international markets recovering.” He contends that in a post Covid-19 world, people will have a preference for flying direct, as opposed to flying through hubs.<br/>