In October 2027, Qantas will put a 22-hour non-stop flight on the departures board. Ten years in the making, Project Sunrise will fly passengers from the east coast of Australia to London and New York. No connection, no chance to stretch your legs anywhere except the aisle. When the first aircraft (called Vega) takes off from Sydney, it will be the longest scheduled commercial flight in history.
It’s a remarkable feat of engineering. It’s also, if we’re honest, a long time to spend in seat 47E. Which raises a question: if work required it, would you strap in for the ultra-long-haul?
Before you answer, “that’s Australia’s problem”, consider this. South African business travellers are already seasoned ultra-long-haul flyers. Delta’s Johannesburg to Atlanta service runs to over 16 and a half hours. United flies non-stop from Joburg and Cape Town to Newark – both around 15 and a half hours. Interestingly, neither breaks into the world’s top 10 longest non-stop flights, which routinely run between 17h 35m and 19h 15m (New York JFK to Singapore). As the flights get longer, the world continues to get smaller.
“South Africans are already flying 15, 16, nearly 17 hours right now, often in economy, and often going straight into a meeting upon landing,” says Herman Heunes, General Manager at Corporate Traveller South Africa. “Project Sunrise is a reminder to relook your travel policy and ask: what does a company owe a traveller it puts on a flight like that?”
A different category of travel
Here’s the thing the airlines have already figured out: ultra-long-haul is a fundamentally different product to ordinary long-haul – and they’re building accordingly.
Qantas didn’t simply order more planes. It commissioned a purpose-built aircraft, the Airbus A350-1000ULR (Ultra Long Range), with an extra fuel tank and a deliberately roomy cabin of just 238 passengers (where a standard A350-1000 typically seats 350-400 passengers). It brought in sleep and nutrition scientists from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre. The aircraft features a dedicated Wellbeing Zone for stretching and movement, plus 12 custom lighting scenes designed around circadian rhythms to nudge your body clock towards its destination while you cruise over the North Pole.
Singapore Airlines, which holds the current record with its Singapore to New York service, made an even blunter design choice. Its ultra-long-range aircraft has no economy cabin at all. Just 161 seats, all business and premium economy. The airline that knows more about ultra-long-haul flying than anyone on earth quietly concluded that economy seating and 19 hours don’t belong in the same sentence.
If airlines are treating these flights as a separate category, travel policies probably should too.
What your travel policy should actually say
This is where the conversation gets practical, for travellers and for the people who book on their behalf. A sensible ultra-long-haul policy covers a number of things:
Lie-flat above a defined threshold. Pick a number, say 12 hours, above which lie-flat seating is standard. The math is simple: a traveller who sleeps arrives able to work, and a traveller who spends 15 hours upright arrives physically exhausted and unproductive.
Lounge access at both ends. The journey includes the hours around the flight. A shower, a proper meal and a quiet place to work before boarding (and after landing) cost a fraction of the fare and change the entire experience.
A recovery buffer on arrival. The rough science of jet lag is that your body adjusts about one time zone per day (depending on whether you’re flying east or west). Landing at 06:00 and presenting to a client at 09:00 is a big, big ask. Build in a 24-hour buffer before the first commitment.
Rest days on the return leg. For flights crossing multiple time zones or exceeding 12 hours, companies often grant one full, paid “rest day” before a return to standard duties and expectations.
Early check-in (or late check-out). If an employee lands early in the morning and must work that afternoon, travel bookers may negotiate early check-in so the traveller can sleep, shower and change before the meeting.
Flexible ground transportation. Taking public transport or driving a rental car after a 12-hour flight is another big ask (especially if a traveller is landing in a foreign city). Policies generally mandate expensing an airport shuttle, chauffeured ride or taxi to eliminate the danger of fatigued driving.
Pre-trip health screenings. Some corporate policies recommend or fund medical consultations for frequent flyers on ultra-long-haul routes to manage risks like deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
Ancillary expenses. Think preferred seating fees (nabbing extra legroom in emergency exit rows or bulkhead seats) or in-flight Wi-Fi.
“None of this is about pampering people,” says Heunes. “It’s duty of care, and it’s protecting the investment. If a company is spending tens of thousands of rands to put someone on the other side of the planet, the marginal cost of making sure that person arrives functional is the best money spent across the whole trip.”
But we’re an SME, not a bank
Fair. Blanket business class policies are a luxury many smaller travel programmes simply can’t carry. But as Heunes explains, there’s a wide middle ground between “business class for everyone” and “good luck in the back”, and this is precisely where a travel expert earns their keep: smarter routings, fare classes with upgrade potential, well-timed stopovers, loyalty programmes put to proper work, negotiated rates and premium economy deployed where it genuinely helps.
It’s also worth saying that non-stop is not automatically better. For some travellers, a one-stop itinerary with a shower and a stretch in Singapore, Dubai or Doha beats the record-breaker comfortably. A good policy allows that choice rather than defaulting to the shortest elapsed time on the screen.
“The best itinerary is the one that gets the job done properly,” says Heunes. “Sometimes that’s the non-stop; sometimes it’s the sensible stopover. What it should never be is whatever happened to be cheapest on the day, with the traveller left to absorb the consequences.”
So, are you in?
There’s something thrilling about the Sydney to London non-stop: three meal services, two sunrises and a piece of aviation history from a single seat. Plenty of travellers will board it out of sheer curiosity.
But whether it’s a bucket-list adventure or a 22-hour endurance test depends far less on your personal stamina than on what your company wraps around the flight.
“Ask questions before the trip, not after it,” Heunes says. “If your travel policy was written when your longest flight was 11 hours to London, it’s due an update. The flights are getting longer. The policy should be getting smarter.”
