THE first direct flight from Australia to England has landed, right on time.

The Qantas Dreamliner didn’t quite have a dream run, with a small amount of turbulence early the flight courtesy of Cyclone Marcus, but for the most part was smooth flying.

The plane took off to applause and landed to the same, with the majority of passengers on the flight aware they were part of a history-making event.

The only exception may have been five month old baby Charlie, for whom the moment was lost, and the Boeing Dreamliner’s special features — designed to make flying long-haul routes more comfortable — were redundant.

Addressing the media in his pyjamas on the flight, Qantas chief Alan Joyce said the success of the Perth-London route could pave the way for direct flights from Perth to Paris in the future.

“We do have the rights to fly to Paris daily; we’ve never had those rights before,” he said.

“When we last did Paris it was from Singapore to Paris and it was three a week, and it was hard to make it economically work.

“So we are keen on it (starting a Perth to Paris route), we are interested in it, but we need to bed this one down first,” Mr Joyce said. “It’s off to a great start it’s only the first flight but we need to show that economically it’s going to work out.”

Boeing Dreamliners were big investments, priced at $250 million each, so it was vital new operations provided good returns on that investment, he said.

At this stage the Perth-London flights were well booked and appeared popular with both holiday-makers and business people, Mr Joyce said.