The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Even I wouldn't want to do this

First, it turns out, my Surface didn't die; only its power supply shuffled off its lithium coil. I got a new power supply and all is well.

Which means I can take a moment to note a proposed flight on QANTAS* that even I would struggle to take. Starting in 2022, the Australian airline proposes a 16,000 km non-stop flight from New York to Sydney that will take 20 hours:

Qantas wants to begin flying the time-saving route commercially as soon as 2022, so the airline used this test trip to explore ways to reduce its inevitable downside: Soul-crushing, body-buckling jet lag. Here’s how my journey unfolded in real time.

It’s shortly after 9 p.m. in New York, our plane has just left JFK International Airport and it’s already become a flying laboratory. Since 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.

Down one side of the business-class section, six Qantas frequent flyers are following a pre-planned schedule for eating and drinking (including limiting alcohol), exercise and sleep. They wear movement and light readers on their wrists and have been asked to log their activities; they’ve already been under observation for a few days and will be monitored for 21 days in total. Most of them are bingeing on movies or reading books, but one of them is dozing within minutes. To be fair, I feel his pain. It may be the middle of the day in Sydney, but my body is telling me it’s pushing midnight back in New York.

Obviously the reporter, Bloomberg's Angus Whitely, survived. He said he would take the flight again, but that it took its toll on him. And he traveled westbound; I can only imagine the eastbound return trip. Assuming a 9am take-off from Sydney (2pm in New York), it would arrive in New York the around 10am next day--and this is after crossing the International Date Line and spending almost 16 hours in darkness.

When I go to ANZAC in a year or two, I think I'll lay over in Hawaii. And fly business class.

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