Scenic treat for Qantas’ longest commercial flight from South America to Darwin

Passengers on the airline’s longest ever commercial flight from Buenos Aires to Darwin have been treated to a bird’s eye view of dome of the world’s most spectacular scenery.

The view of Antarctica from a Qantas 787 flight, taken by cabin crew member Elisa Pritchard.

A REPATRIATION flight from Buenos Aires to Darwin has become the longest commercial service ever operated by Qantas when it touched down last night.

About 115 passengers and crew were on board the Boeing 787-9 which made the 14,683km trip,which took almost 18 hours.

The distance is about 200km further than Qantas’s Perth-London route, the third longest commercial service in the world, after New York-Singapore, and Auckland-Doha.

Qantas has flown longer distances in its Project Sunrise research flights from London and New York to Sydney, but with significantly fewer people on board.

The flight from the Argentinian capital was the subject of painstaking careful planning by pilots who plotted the fastest route for the marathon journey via the South Pole, providing a visual treat for those on board.

Northern Territory Airports’ aviation development analyst Bruce Dale said the large windows of the 787-9 and the clarity of the air over Antarctica meant those on board would get a view like no other.

“It’s a phenomenal double-win situation,” he said.

The view of Antarctica from a previous Qantas Boeing 787 scenic flight. Picture: Elisa Pritchard

In a tweet viewed by tens of thousands, pilots Damien and Alex revealed they were over the Walker Ranges in Antarctica where the temperature was an eye-popping -75 Celsius.

“Def no polar bears, all going well,” said the flight deck tweet.

Mr Dale said the flight route was more direct than it looked on paper, for one simple reason.

“We’re used to looking at the world map as a rectangle but of course we are a globe, so when you look at it like that it makes perfect sense to fly over Antarctica,” he said.

The service marks the first time any commercial airline has flown non-stop from Buenos Aires to the Northern Territory capital, which has become something of an aviation hub in the pandemic.

Since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, Darwin has been the only airport in Australia to have received flights from all six permanently inhabited continents.

Mr Dale said the only other international airports to achieve such a milestone include Doha in Qatar, Dubai and London.

“We’ve had flights from London, Frankfurt and Paris, from India and Dili in Asia, Johannesburg in South Africa and also Vancouver and Los Angeles,” he said.

“And of course it was a great honour to welcome the Olympic athletes home from Tokyo.”

Mr Dale said the city’s geography and its proximity to the Howard Springs quarantine facility had made it an obvious choice for many of the repatriation flights operated by Qantas.

“Darwin has a strong aviation history as the site of Australia’s first international airport in 1919, and Qantas launched its first international flights from Darwin in 1935,” Mr Dale said.

The 787 left Brisbane on Sunday to fly to Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Buenos Aires, taking just under 12-and-a-half hours.

Upon arrival in Darwin, all of the people on board flight QF14 went straight to Howard Springs for two weeks of quarantine.

Qantas previously operated regular non-stop flights between Sydney and Buenos Aires from 2008 to 2012.

The airline is planning to resume international services from Sydney to several destinations including Los Angeles and London from November 14.

Qantas has also flagged the possibility of operating regular flights between Darwin and London in the place of Perth, due to Western Australia’s delayed reopening of international borders.

Originally published as Scenic treat for Qantas’ longest commercial flight from South America to Darwin