Qantas longest -138B sectors were SYD-SIN HNL-NAN SFO-HNL YVR-HNL JFK-SFO LHR-JFK LHR-BDA
From late 1964 saw their new Fiesta Route.
A QF Boeing 707 ‘V-jet’ would took off weekly from Sydney en route to London, via the opposite direction to the original Kangaroo Route.
It would have to stop several times for fuel, and possibly the route planners tried to make it as scenic as possible, with stops including Fiji, Tahiti, Acapulco, Mexico City, The Bahamas and Bermuda. The first service was aboard VH-EBM, the very aircraft that John Travolta would later own ,and the last -138B to be built for QF in 1964.
All up, the flight took 45 hours – 27 of them in the air.
For some reason at PPT was a day long stop arriving at 0835 from NAN, then departed at 2300 to ACA, but not on the way back.
The longest leg was across the Pacific from Tahiti to Acapulco, and the shortest leg was to Acapulco from Mexico’s capital, just an hour’s flight away.
However, this short hop served a very important technical purpose. Mexico City was too high above sea level for the Boeing to take off with full tanks, so the aircraft would fill up in Acapulco for the long flight ahead to Tahiti.
What were the diversion airports when flying the long overwater Pacific legs ? Obviously Qantas were (perhaps still are) the world's safest airline in terms of lack of major incidents, so the routes were well planned and executed, but all the same....