Melbourne and London via Perth. The route also opens up the possibility of further direct flights to Europe from Perth such as Paris and Frankfurt. In June 2022, Qantas launched a non-stop seasonal service from Perth to Rome. In late March 2020, prior to Qantas cutting all international services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, several repatriation flights were operated by Airbus A380, routed as Sydney-Darwin-London. The Singaporean government had banned transit passengers and airspace in the Middle East was closed, due to the pandemic. This was the first time an Airbus A380 flew nonstop between Europe and Oceania. In November 2021, Qantas resumed non-stop Kangaroo Route flights, this time from Darwin to London before resuming the non-stop route between Perth and London in May 2022 following the reopening of Western Australia for international travel. Operations Aside from codeshares and alliances/partners, airlines operating routes on the Kangaroo Route, from Australia to the United Kingdom, are the following: Project Sunrise On 25 August 2017, Qantas announced Project Sunrise, aiming to fly non-stop from the East Coast of Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane) to London, Paris, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro and New York City by 2022, and challenged Boeing and Airbus to create aircraft that can travel to such places without stopping. In 2019, Qantas issued a request for proposal for an aircraft with over 300 seats in four classes, to be delivered from 2022. Both Boeing and Airbus submitted proposals in 2019. Boeing announced some delays in the B777-8 project in August 2019 after Etihad Airways dropped orders made in 2013, but the company made it clear that it remained in contention for Project Sunrise. On 18–20 October 2019, Qantas made a 19-hour test flight QF7879 with a Boeing 787-9 from New York to Sydney. The next month, Qantas operated its first 19-20 hour test flight from London to Sydney. In commemoration of the London to Sydney flight, passengers were given replicas of the certificate rewarded to pilots Capt. Ross Smith, Lt. Keith Smith, Sgts. Wally Sheirs and Jim Bennett for successfully arriving in Australia from Great Britain in less than 30 days, after the Australian government challenged the world's leading aviators to do so in 1919, 100 years earlier. Two months later, on 13 December 2019, Qantas announced that their preferred aircraft for the project was the Airbus A350-1000. The aircraft will have an additional fuel tank and slightly increased