The long-awaited service, to launch on March 24, will take 17 hours. A team of clinical sleep specialists, nutritionists and metabolic scientists have been working alongside the airline’s creative director of food Neil Perry and his Rockpool team to ensure onboard dishes leave passengers feeling tip top.

“The menu we are trialling on the Perth to London route will continue to offer a selection of customer favourites but it has some special ingredient additions and exclusions,” said Perry in a statement.

Dishes on the new menu, which will be available across various cabins, will feature ingredients that promote hydration such as green leafy vegetables, cucumber, strawberries and celery, and light meal options such as a tuna poke salad bowl.

Specific ingredients such as chilli will be reserved for specific times of day to help passengers cope with jetlag.

Drinks will include probiotic-infused cold pressed juice shots, organic kombucha and a bespoke herbal tea using lemon verbena chamomile and lemongrass.

A hot chocolate bedtime drink containing the sleep-inducing amino acid Tryptophan will help lull passengers to sleep at the right time.

Academic director of the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre, Professor Stephen Simpson, said the next step in the research will involve trials with a group of Frequent Flyers using wearable technology and apps to collect data on sleeping and activity patterns, mental state, eating patterns and hydration before, during and after their long haul flight.

“Qantas’s new menu incorporates the latest scientific knowledge on nutrition and hydration and our scientists are excited by this opportunity to discover how the wide variety of influences work together during long haul flights,” he said.

-AAP