Passengers will be able to fly from London to Australia non-stop for the first time when airline Qantas launches its new service from March 2018.
Australia’s national carrier says it will connect Perth, in the west of the country, to the UK capital using Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
The 9,000 mile (14,498km) flight will take 17 hours.
Perth will be a hub for passengers from eastern Australia going to the UK, tourism minister Steven Ciobo said.
He also said the new service would boost employment and tourism in Australia, a sector growing three times faster than the rest of the national economy, and one that supports 580,000 jobs.
Mr Ciobo also said that the UK was Australia’s third-largest source of international visitors, with 660,000 people travelling from there to Australia in 2015.
“When Qantas created the Kangaroo Route to London in 1947, it took four days and nine stops,” Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce said.
“Now it will take just 17 hours from Perth non-stop.”
He added: “The opportunities this opens up are huge.
“It’s great news for travellers because it will make it easier to get to London. It’s great news for Western Australia because it will bring jobs and tourism. And it’s great news for the nation, because it will bring us closer to one of our biggest trade partners and sources of visitors.”
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners used on the route will carry 236 passengers, Qantas said.
The new flights will make up the longest non-stop passenger route in the world.
The current longest non-stop scheduled flight is Emirates Airlines’ 14,200-kilometre Dubai-to-Auckland, New Zealand, service, which takes 16 hours 35 minutes in an Airbus A380.
What else can you do in 17 hours?
Watch Gone With The Wind four and a half times.
Fly to the International Space Station almost three times
Read about a third of War And Peace – at an average of three words a second
Watch the first 18 episodes of Games of Thrones, and still have half an hour to spare.
Drive round the M25 – at 70mph, with no traffic – 10 times
The announcement of the new route comes as Boeing also announced airline Iran Air was buying 80 of its passenger planes.
Play 11 games of football
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