Qantas Airways chose the Airbus A350-1000 to perform its future direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne to London and New York as part of its Sunrise project. The airline has expressed a need for 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines and equipped with an additional tank to be able to perform these future long-haul flights of 21 hours. This decision is the result of several months of discussions and evaluation between Qantas Airways, Airbus and Boeing. For its part, the U.S. manufacturer was evaluated on the Boeing 777-8. Yet, no contract has been signed and Airbus agreed to extend the deadline to confirm delivery slots of the first A350-1000s from February 2020 to March 2020 in order to give Qantas Airways time to finalize the contract terms with the unions of pilots and cabin crew about their missions during these future flights of more than 20 hours which require a rearrangement of the rules which govern the rest times. The green light will also have to be obtained from the Australian civil aviation safety authority.