What being a guinea pig on the first 20-hour flight did to me
WE CLICK INTO THE SYDNEY CLOCK OFF THE BAT. THE LIGHTS STAY UP AND WE’RE INSTRUCTED TO STAY AWAKE FOR AT LEAST SIX HOURS
I’ve endured the world’s newest longest flight, a 16,200km nonstop ultramarathon from New York to Sydney. It took about 19½ hours, and was almost as demanding as that sounds.
Qantas wants to begin flying the time-saving route commercially as soon as 2022, so the airline used a test trip with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on October 20 to explore ways to reduce its soul-crushing, body-buckling jet lag. Here’s how my journey unfolded.
Off the ground: Our plane has just left JFK International, and it’s already a flying laboratory. Because the goal is to adapt to our destination’s time zone as fast as possible, we click into the Sydney clock right off the bat. That means no snoozing. The lights stay up and we’re under instructions to stay awake for at least six hours — until it’s evening in Australia. This immediately causes trouble for some passengers. Six Qantas frequent flyers are following a preplanned schedule for eating and drinking, exercise and sleep. They wear movement and light readers on their wrists and log their activities. Most binge on movies or read books, but one is dozing within minutes.
I feel his pain. It may be the middle of the day in Sydney, but my body is telling me it’s midnight back in New York.
Two hours in: It’s feeding time, and the specially designed dishes are supposed to fire me up, and a flavourful serving of poached prawns with chilli and lime is like a gentle culinary slap in the face. Spicy Chinese-style cod with jasmine rice and sesame seeds repeat the explosive action. I’m momentarily awake.
The six human guinea pigs are seated on one side of the cabin. I want to do my own set of tests to see how my body is holding up. After speaking to a travel doctor in Sydney before the trip, I’m armed with equipment to monitor my blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen-saturation levels. I’ve also got a memory test and a mood questionnaire. I want to see if a flight this long impairs my brain or dims my spirits.
The three-hourly tests I take during the first half of the flight reflect the demands of this trip.
My blood pressure is elevated, though not high, and my heart rate picking up. My mood is light, but darkening gradually.
Three hours in: Around me, passengers are standing up just to stay awake. The crew have been asked to keep sleep diaries, and to use iPads to rate their fatigue, reaction times, workload and stress. That dozy frequent flyer is asleep, again.
After I first wrote about this upcoming flight, one reader emailed to urge me into a stouter mindset. During the Korean War in the early 1950s, he flew 40hour reconnaissance missions with crew rotations every six hours. “Man up,” the 83-yearold told me. Point taken.
Four hours in: Marie Carroll, a professor at the University of Sydney who’s overseeing the passenger research on the flight, rallies her troops. “This is the time, guys, when we really have to work through this.” Moments later, they’re leaning against the food trolleys in the galley, stretching. Next, they perform upright press-ups, and try synchronised dance moves. All in the name of science.
Seven hours in: A second meal arrives. For me, being fed twice in relatively quick succession has really helped time to pass quickly during the first part of the flight. This part of the menu should mean the next few hours slip by too: it’s heavy on carbohydrates and designed to send us to sleep. The sweetpotato soup with crème fraîche is thick and luxurious, the toasted cheese sandwich less so. The chef says he’s been preparing meals for three days.
The lights are dimmed at last, and it feels like I’ve been released. I crash for six hours straight. That’s longer than I can remember sleeping without waking on any other flight.
Fourteen hours in: My own tests suggest I’m coping. My blood pressure, a good gauge of stress and fatigue, is back to normal. My heart’s pumping slower, I ace my memory test, and my questionnaire shows my mood is brighter.
Qantas initially had dreams of turning these super-long flights into flying hotels, with sleeping berths or a workout zone. That vision gave way to reality when profit margins proved too tight to waste space on such luxuries.
Seventeen hours in: Time for breakfast, and there’s no limp sausage. Instead, it’s a bowl of ancient grains, avocado purée, warm halloumi cheese and a herb salad. This flight is turning everything on its head.
One of the frequent flyers says he got almost eight hours’ sleep and feels good. What about a full day’s work after landing? “I probably could do that,” he says. He thinks the bigger test will be how he copes in a couple of days.
Preparing to land: I feel better now than I did after flying to New York from Sydney a few days ago with one stop. The dozen or so hours it took to reach Los Angeles were followed by a grating hour and a half queuing at immigration with hundreds of other zombified travellers.
As our plane approaches its destination, Qantas CEO Joyce addresses us, saying the flight has given him more confidence that the project can work.
And come Sunday lunchtime in Sydney, I’m feeling jaded but far from debilitated. I even make it through a children’s birthday party, surely an acid test of anyone’s nerves.
Personally, I would choose a direct Sydney-New York flight over one with a layover. But it won’t suit everyone: it took discipline and work to stick to the no-sleep routine in the first half of the flight. There may be a benefit to switching to the destination time immediately, but it comes at a price. I feel like I had to earn it.