Qantas has announced a major change to two of its most famous flights as it prepares to sell the first tickets on its new Project Sunrise routes.

The flying kangaroo said on Monday that QF1 and QF2 will fly from Sydney to London non-stop from October 2027 – doing away with decades of stopovers in Singapore.

Qantas’s “Kangaroo Route” between Sydney and London began in 1947. At the time, it took four days and seven stops – Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta, Karachi, Cairo, Castel Benito and Rome.

“For almost 80 years, generations of Qantas aircraft, from the Lockheed Constellation to the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, have brought Sydney and London closer together,” Qantas said.

“Through it all, QF1 and QF2, our most iconic flight number pair, have long been associated with that journey and a key part of Qantas’ history.

“In October 2027, that journey becomes non-stop with the launch of Project Sunrise, saving customers up to four hours in travel time compared to the existing service.”

Once the Project Sunrise flights take off, Qantas will continue to fly to London via Singapore with QF5 and QF6. Those numbers currently belong to its seasonal Perth-Rome flights, which will become QF105 and QF106.

The shift will allow passengers to choose between getting to their destination sooner or taking a break along the way.

Qantas announced earlier this year that London would be the first destination for the world’s longest non-stop commercial flight.

“Every generation of aircraft has taken a stop out of the journey. Today, we’re taking out the last one,” CEO Vanessa Hudson said at the time.

The first Project Sunrise tickets for flights departing Sydney for the British capital go on sale in February.

“The tyranny of distance has finally been conquered,” Hudson said  at the unveiling of one of the modified Airbus planes the airline will use on the new ultra-long haul flights.

“This is a moment Qantas has been working towards since the day we were founded. Australia’s distance from the rest of the world should never stand in the way.”

Non-stop flights to New York will follow in 2028, with tickets on sale from August 2027. The new flights will cut more than three hours off the total travel time compared with current one-stop services.

The first of 12 new Airbuses for Project Sunrise had been scheduled before the end of 2o26. However, that has been pushed back due to supply chain issues and it is now confirmed for April 2027.

Qantas has said “the next four will follow in quick succession”. It needs three of the aircraft to run a daily non-stop service on the routes.

In July, an Airbus A350-1000ULR that will eventually fly the non-stop services completed a 19-hour direct flight between France and Melbourne.

Qantas said ahead of test flight that the crew would be “putting the aircraft’s systems through their paces, including the additional 20,000-litre fuel tank that allows it to fly commercially non-stop for up to 22 hours”.

The flight test was eagerly followed by plane enthusiasts, with nearly 70,000 people tracking it on flightradar24.com.