First non-stop flight between Australia and the UK touched down in London's Heathrow Airport
foto: BBC // EPA
The first scheduled non-stop flight between Australia and the UK has touched down in London's Heathrow Airport.
Qantas Flight QF9 completed its 14,498km journey from Perth in just over 17 hours.
The airline is using the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which is twice as fuel-efficient as the Boeing 747.
It is part of ambitious plans by Qantas to add ultra long-haul flights to its schedules.
The Australian flag carrier's Chief Executive, Alan Joyce, has called the new Perth-London service a "game-changing route".
Speaking at an event ahead of the inaugural flight, he said the earliest Qantas flights between Australia and the UK - known as the "kangaroo route" - had taken four days and involved seven stops.