On Tuesday, Qantas announced its plans to trial non-stop flights from London to Sydney, a journey of over 20 hours. This is not news. This is a confession.
We have reached a point where technology permits us to remain trapped in a metal tube for an entire day, and we call this progress. The Victorians at least had the decency to build ocean liners with ballrooms and smoking rooms. What does the modern traveller get?
A seat that reclines three inches and a packet of pretzels. But let us not be deceived: this is not about passenger comfort. This is about the religion of the ultra-long-haul, the fetishisation of endurance for its own sake.
It is a symptom of a civilisation that has confused movement with meaning. We fly farther, faster, and longer because we can, not because we should. The environmental cost alone is obscene.
A single return flight from London to Sydney produces more carbon per passenger than a year of driving. And for what? So that businessmen can hold a meeting in Sydney and be back in time for dinner?
The Romans built roads; we build jet streams to nowhere. The empire is dying, and our last gasp is a 20-hour flight. Qantas should be commended for its engineering prowess, but condemned for its cultural bankruptcy.
We do not need to get to Sydney faster. We need to ask ourselves why we are so desperate to leave London in the first place.
