Financial Times Europe - 26.10.2019 - 27.10.2019

8 ★ FT Weekend 26 October/27 October 2019

Travel

I

n 19 hours and 16 minutes, you

could watch 52 episodes of Friends,

listen to the whole of Wagner’s Ring

Cycle — or fly nonstop from New

York to Sydney on the world’s long-

est commercial flight. You could also, in

the time it took a Boeing 787-9 Dream-

liner to make the trip, dance the

Macarena several hundred times, but

we only did it once, in the empty econ-

omy cabin as we flew over California.

I am on a trial flight for what aims to

become the longest-ever commercial

service, which will begin in 2023 if regu-

lators co-operate with the Australian

airline Qantas. The previous record was

held by Singapore Airlines’ Newark to

Singapore service, which comes in at a

brisk 18-and-a-half hours. In recent

years, we have entered a new era of ultra

long-haul flying: Qatar Airways offers a

17-and-a-half-hour flight from Auck-

land to Doha, and Qantas’s Perth-

London flight is only slightly shorter.

My cabin-mates on this flight included

trial passengers, crew, researchers, cam-

eramen, TV presenters, Qantas chief

executive Alan Joyce and a flock of seri-

ous-looking aviation reporters. There

were just 49 of us in total, cocooned in

business class, though some people had

to occasionally troop to the back to keep

the plane from tilting forward.

Though the flight was genuinely

record-breaking, there was also an ele-

ment of theatre to the proceedings. I

watched as a popular Australian break-

fast-show host danced down the aisle in

Qantas pyjamas (“I’m the poor man’s

Piers Morgan,” he had said when he

introduced himself to me earlier). But

the Macarena was also for science.

Together with researchers from the

Charles Perkins Centre at the University

of Sydney, Qantas was running tests on

pilots, crew and a group of six human

guinea pigs chosen from the airline’s fre-

quent flyers.

The research question was this: if pas-

sengers are forced to convert to Sydney

time as soon as they get on board, and

prompted to do exercises throughout

the flight, would it be possible to miti-

gate some of the adverse health effects

of long-haul flying?

“There are two things,” said Marie

Carroll, a professor at the University of

Sydney who oversaw the onboard

experiments. “There’s jet lag, which is

when the body’s clock is not in synch

with the natural day-and-night 24-hour

cycle on Earth. There’s also fatigue,”

which is related to dehydration and not

moving. How long is it healthy for a per-

son to be on a flight? I ask. “We really

don’t know,” Carroll said, adding that

constant flying is “ultimately bad for

your cardiovascular and immune

health.” Sitting for long periods of time

can increase the risk of deep vein

thrombosis, or blood clots that can form

in your legs. The guinea pigs, who had

been logging sleep, food and mood

before the flights, also did reaction tests

on iPads throughout the flight.

The Australians onboard were used to

long-haul flights, and seemed largely

unfazed by this one (“It’s a flight,”

shrugged Laurie Kozlovic, one of the

test subjects, when I asked him if he had

any reservations about the trip). The

Americans, in contrast, acted as if we

were on an expedition to the Arctic.

“How are you holding up?” we would

ask each other, as if we weren’t just get-

ting to lie in bed for a day and have peo-

ple bring us food.

The pilots who broke the longest flight

record in 1927 (51 hours flying in circles

over Long Island in a tiny plane) acci-

dentally brought soapy water onboard

and so had nothing to drink for two

days. Charles Lindbergh survived his

33-and-a-half-hour flight across the

Atlantic on a single ham and chicken

sandwich. This flight, in contrast, fea-

tured a menu designed to wake you up

at the beginning (a papaya salad and

pasta with optional chillies, plus choco-

late and coffee), and then to put you to

sleep in the middle (butternut squash

soup, wine, panna cotta). The lighting

was meant to imitate Sydney’s, so it was

bright for the first half of the flight, and

dark when it was night in Sydney.

Staying awake was a struggle: when

the lights finally went down I was deliri-

ous, having read most of two books,

drunk two glasses of white wine

and made significant headway

withAbba Gold: Greatest Hits, which is

apparently one of the only albums I own

on my phone.

When I woke up, the Qantas photog-

rapher told me that I had slept so deeply

that at one point three different camera-

men had been clustered around my seat

filming me for their broadcasts. “We

wondered if it was creepy, but then

decided it wasn’t,” he assured me. Later,

I would glimpse my huddled, uncon-

scious form on the Australian breakfast

showSunrise.

There is one obvious flaw in this

experiment: 19-plus hours on a full

International Pilots Association, in a

media release. If Qantas wants to offer

these flights, it will have to demonstrate

that pilots are able to functionthat long.

Our four pilots wore brain activity

monitors and had to give urine samples

every few hours to test for the hormone

melatonin, which regulates sleep cycles.

Cameras were mounted in the cockpit to

monitor their levels of alertness.

Qantas has been working up to this

point for decades: in 1947, when the air-

line first flew the “Kangaroo Route”

from Sydney to London, it took seven

stops, four days, and £585 per passenger

(the equivalent of more than £20,000

today). In 1989, they made the journey

in reverse, with no stops but almost no

passengers and the seats taken out.

They almost ran out of fuel. Over the

next few months, Qantas will test the

London-Sydney route yet again. On one

flight, they will implement the same

changes to lighting, meals, and passen-

ger movement as they did on our flight.

The other will be a control flight, with no

special changes.

“We know that getting to the east

coast of the United States from the east

coast of Australia, and to the UK, is

going to be a huge business opportu-

nity,” said Joyce at a press conference

before the flight. “And that’s why we’re

keen on doing it. And that’s why these

flights have got to be groundbreaking.”

Fuel is one of the biggest obstacles to

nonstop long-haul flights: immensely

heavy, it takes a significant amount of

the plane’s reserves just to carry it. Stop-

ping to refuel in Los Angeles solves this

problem but adds an extra three or four

hours to the journey. This plane held

about 101 tonnes of fuel at the outset.

We landed in Sydney with 70 minutes of

fuel left in the tank, but that is only

because of the reduced passenger load:

with a full load of cargo and passengers,

we would not have made it. The lead

pilot, Sean Golding, said that despite

having to carry all of our fuel, this flight

would use less fuel, overall, than a flight

with a stop. “The reason is because as we

come into land, we taxi in, we taxi out,

we take off again, we climb up. That’s

using more fuel, so the net result will be

less fuel by doing the nonstop flight.”

To accommodate a full load of passen-

gers, Qantas has solicited proposals

from both Boeing and Airbus for aero-

planes with better fuel efficiency and an

extended flying range.

The results of the health study won’t

be available for some time. But a few

days after the flight, I emailed Daniel

Brescia, another test subject, to ask if

the exercises worked. “I’m feeling much

less jet-lagged than I would usually be,

so I think the experiment was a success

in that regard,” he responded. He said

the results of his alertness tests were

roughly the same as before the flight.

“But the trick was obviously keeping us

awake for the first half of the flight, and

I’m still not sure how that translates to a

plane full of people.”

Even in business class, even with the

dancing and the food and the special

lighting, flying for nearly 20 hours is dis-

orienting. When I got off the plane in

Sydney, the border agent told me I had

filled out my entry forms incorrectly. I

hadn’t put the date, he said, handing me

a pen. I froze. I could not remember the

day, or the month, or even, for a terrible

moment, the year. “I was on the test

flight,” I managed.

He understood. “It’s the 20th,” he

said. There was a pause. “Of October,”

he said. There was another, worse

pause. “2019,” he said. Right.

We were all cocooned in

business, though some had

to troop to the back to stop

the plane tilting forward

Clockwise from

main picture:

passengers

are prompted

to do exercises

throughout

the flight;

Annalisa Quinn

boards the flight

in Sydney;

taking a selfie as

tiredness set in;

the pilots wear

headsets to

monitor their

alertness;

bedding down in

business class

Below: the

boarding gate

at JFK

James Morgan/Getty Images;

Annalisa Quinn

i/D E TA I L S

The Lone Mountain Ranch
(lonemountainranch.com) about 50 milesis
south of Bozeman Yellowstone International
Airport. Rates start at $595 per person per night
in summer, $425 in winter

I

f our guide Ally had any qualms

about shepherding four not

particularly fit women and girls,

aged 8 to 80, down the Gallatin

River in an inflatable rubber raft,

she didn’t let on. Not even when one of

us nearly flattened her with a

misdirected paddle.

“This rapid is pretty big,” she said.

“Ollie, why don’t you let me take that

paddle so that you can hold on tight to

the raft. We might end up backward or

hit a rock pretty hard.”

As the water washed over the raft

and the eight-year-old let out a yelp, I

looked back at my mother. She was

drenched, but smiling.

For her 80th birthday, Mom had

made clear ahead of time that she did

not want another party. She wanted the

whole family to gather and take a

vacation together. And renting a beach

house wasn’t going to cut it.

We needed somewhere that offered

enough physical activities to keep us all

busy and out of each other’s hair, yet

provided enough luxury make my

mother (who can’t help taking charge

of the cooking) feel she was having a

special treat. After ruling out beach

resorts and city breaks, we stumbled

on a phenomenon of the American

mountain west: the luxury dude ranch.

Founded in 1915 as working ranch,

Lone Mountain Ranch has been

welcoming people who want to play

cowboy since the early 1930s. Back in

the early days the offerings included

trapping animals and panning for gold.

These days, with 27 log cabins

scattered in the shadow of its

namesake peak, a farm-to-table

gourmet restaurant and countless

activities from riding to mountain

biking and yoga, it’s more like an all-

inclusive luxury cruise ship on land.

No riding boots? No problem — they

have a whole wall of them for you to

borrow. Not in the best of shape or

frightened of swinging yourself up on a

live horse? No worries — just stand on a

wooden platform and a placid horse

will be brought to you. Mounting one is

almost like getting into bed. Having

learnt to ride as a child, I felt

ridiculous, until I watched my 82-year-

old dad gingerly climb on to a sleepy

horse named Opal. Without the

platform, he wouldn’t have been able

to come along on the trail ride.

Months before our arrival,

Aleksandra, our “ranch concierge”, had

got in touch to find out what we would

want to do. She made dinner

reservations, set up massages and

arranged special wine and a birthday

cake for the festive celebration. She

also urged us to sign up in advance for

anything that sounded remotely

interesting.

That is how I found myself balancing

precariously atop a $2,000 luxury

mountain bike, as I tried to screw up

the courage to ride down a root- and

rock-strewn mountain trail. My

husband and son had already bombed

down the hill and were rapidly

disappearing through the trees, but

Sean, the ranch guide, had stayed

behind to coax me through the turns.

“Don’t worry, the tyres will keep on

gripping even if you lean over,” he

called and demonstrated by tipping his

bike to a near 45 degree angle to the

ground. “Just stay on the bike.. .”.

Easier said than done, I thought, as I

bounced along the trail. The shock

absorbers and hydraulic seat did make

the experience less uncomfortable, but

I have to confess that I preferred the

flat part of the ride when Sean stopped

to point out the sage plants and flowers

known as prairie paintbrush.

Back at the cabin, we gathered in a

five-bedroom family house dubbed

“Doug Fir” that gave us ample place to

play cards and plan our visit to

Yellowstone (the 11-year-old wanted to

see animals, Dad wanted geysers).

The giant stuffed bison and panther

looming down from the rafters in the

Horn & Cantle restaurant would have

been amazing enough, but then there

were the portions. We ordered the 40oz

bone-in ribeye expecting to feed three

people and still have leftovers. The

leisurely pace of the service would have

been annoying, except that the kids

were able to dash outside and roast

marshmallows for ‘smores (sticks and

fixings provided of course) when they

were bored.

For a break we signed up for the

bocce tournament, and played lawn

bowls against several other family

groups while scarfing burgers and lamb

koftas prepared on a BBQ. My mother

sat watching as the children

demonstrated gymnastics moves. The

adults drank beer and started plotting

our next multigenerational holiday — it

won’t be too long before my father

turns 85.

Brooke Masters

Having learnt to ride as a

child, I felt ridiculous, until

I watched my 82-year-old

dad gingerly climb on to a

sleepy horse named Opal

POSTCARD

FROM...

MONTANA

Australia What happens|

when you spend 19 hours in

the air? On a trial run of the

world’s longest commercial

flight,Annalisa uinnQ inds outf

In it for the long haul

plane, in economy, will be very different

from sleeping on flat business-class

beds and dancing to one-hit wonders

from the ‘90s with Qantas’s chief execu-

tive. “I think in business, direct flights

will be fantastic. But with direct, I’m

more worried about the people down

the back,” said Carl Petch, one of the test

subjects, pointing to the back of the

plane. “That’s going to be the interesting

one.” At the moment, a return business

class flight from New York to Sydney on

Qantas starts at $6,780. Current return

flights in economy start at $1,074.

Flights like this one are likely to take

the largest toll on the crew. The flight

attendants each had about five hours

and 45 minutes off in total. Despite the

special sleeping bunks on this flight,

none of the flight attendants I spoke to

managed to sleep for more than two of

the 20-odd hours.

Current regulations limit flying time

to 18-and-a-half hours to protect against

pilot fatigue. These were waived for the

test flight, but pilots’ unions warn of the

dangers of fatigue on longer flights, even

with rotations and built-in breaks.

“Pilots are concerned about being able to

get enough quality rest during ultra

long-range flights to maintain peak per-

formance, and we believe significant

caution should be exercised in the initial

operations to make sure there are no

unintended consequences,” said Mark

Sedgwick, head of the Australian and

Matthew Cook

Longest routes in commercial air travel

As of November , in nautical miles (’)

* Aiming to launch by 

Source: OAG

New York-Sydney*

Newark-Singapore

Auckland-Doha

London-Perth

Auckland -Dubai

LA-Singapore

Chicago-Sydney

Dallas-Sydney

New York-Manila

San Francisco-Singapore**

Atlanta-Johannesburg

    

Qantas Singapore Airlines United Qatar Emirates

Delta Philippine Airlines

** Operated by United and Singapore Airlines

OCTOBER 26 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 10/201924/ - 18:28 User:paul.gould Page Name:WKD8, Part,Page,Edition:WKD, 8, 1