Qantas is using the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner for what will be the first direct commercial passenger flight between the two nations. For the inaugural flight – scheduled to touch down at Heathrow at around 5.05am on Sunday – Qantas has reduced the capacity of the plane to 236 business, premium economy and economy seats. Doing that on a 17-hour flight doesn’t make sense because you are going to leave people for a long time. On the first flight, the centre is wiring up 10 passengers with medical-grade, Fit-Bit style monitors to measure sleep and physical activity. That would include preflight (perhaps a week preflight), the entire flight and then possibly a week post-flight.”The statistics for the inaugural flight make interesting reading.

Source: The Guardian March 23, 2018 16:18 UTC