Qantas Airbus A350-1000ULR Takes Off On Marathon 20-Hour Nonstop Test Flight

Qantas and Airbus are conducting their longest-ever nonstop test flight with the A350-1000ULR, aimed at future ultra-long-haul service connecting eastern Australia with Europe and New York. The aircraft departed Airbus’s Toulouse Blagnac Airport in southwestern France, bound for Melbourne, with the flight expected to remain airborne for around 20 hours upon arrival tomorrow morning. The jet, identified by serial number 707 and registration F-WULR, took off at 7:33 AM local time, about three minutes after its scheduled departure. At the time of reporting, Flightradar24 tracking showed it had been in the air just over eight hours. Airbus is using the sortie to collect data on how the aircraft performs on the kind of mission it hopes to make routine. The estimated arrival shifted from a planned 10:30 AM to 11:39 AM local time.