Serving 'lunch' before midnight — and other ways airlines can help reduce jet lag

From popping melatonin to making fists with your toes, passengers person agelong employed strategies to combat the antagonistic effects of aerial travel.

But airlines tin play a relation too, according to caller probe from Qantas and the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre.

The probe is portion of Qantas' Project Sunrise program, which plans to nexus Sydney to New York City and London via non-stop flights successful 2025.

Qantas says that portion it has the capableness to alert the 20-hour flights, it's studying ways — from lighting schedules to eating spicy foods — to marque the travel little arduous for passengers and crew.

According to preliminary results released successful mid-June, researchers utilized unpaid passengers connected 3 trial flights to analyse ways to trim pitchy lag, including:

Volunteers were monitored utilizing wearable tech devices during the flight, and their absorption times were measured done online tests, according to the press release. They besides kept a regular wellness log before, during and for 2 weeks aft trial flights, it said.   

The study concluded that, compared with different passengers, the volunteers "experienced little terrible pitchy lag (self-reported), amended slumber prime inflight [and] amended cognitive show successful the 2 days aft flight."

"Light vulnerability is captious for reducing jetlag," said Svetlana Postnova, who studies sleep-wake cycles and circadian rhythms astatine the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre.

The formation departed New York City astatine 9 p.m., and the researchers kept the lights connected for an further six hours, she told CNBC.

Lights were turned disconnected astir 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, and the compartment stayed acheronian for 11 hours, earlier being turned backmost connected for the last 2 hours of the flight, she said.

That was done "to nudge the assemblage clocks towards the destination clip zone," she said.

Meals were aligned with the lighting, said Postnova, noting they were served aft takeoff, earlier the lights were turned disconnected and earlier arriving.

But the archetypal repast wasn't meal — it was lunch, said Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce.

"Night flights usually commencement with meal and past lights off. For this flight, we started with luncheon and kept the lights connected for the archetypal six hours, to lucifer the clip of time astatine our destination. It means you commencement reducing the jetlag consecutive away," helium said in a connection aft the archetypal trial formation was conducted.

Studies connected the brightness and colour code of compartment lighting are planned for aboriginal this year, and much probe connected departure and accomplishment times and seasonal differences is needed, according to Qantas and the University of Sydney.

Findings from the trial flights person not been published, but Peter Cistulli, prof of slumber medicine astatine the University of Sydney, called the aboriginal results "promising."

For now, Postnova said, travelers shouldn't hold until they onshore to combat pitchy lag — rather, they should commencement the process arsenic soon arsenic their formation departs.

The pitchy lag probe is being conducted portion Qantas awaits 12 Airbus 350 craft it ordered successful May 2022. Delivery is expected to statesman successful precocious 2025, with the New York-Sydney way starting soon thereafter, according to the property release.

Joyce said the caller non-stop flights volition trim question times betwixt New York and London to Sydney by immoderate 3 hours.

The caller Airbus fleet volition besides person an onboard "Wellbeing Zone" wherever passengers tin agelong and execute elemental exercises.

"Our A350s volition person astir 100 less seats than astir of our competitors, which gives america country for much abstraction successful each classes arsenic good arsenic a Wellbeing Zone for Premium Economy and Economy passengers to stretch," Joyce said.

As for what passengers bash connected the flights, which volition apt beryllium the longest commercialized flights successful the world, Joyce said: "People tin take however they walk their clip but we'll marque recommendations based connected science."