Record passenger flight safely reaches the Falkland Islands | NDR.de – news

Status: 02/01/2021 1:41 pm

It was the longest non-stop flight in Lufthansa history: last night an Airbus A350 took off from Hamburg for the Falkland Islands, now they have landed. The machine took a team of researchers on a mission to Antarctica.

Normally, planes take off in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel for destinations in Europe, the Middle East and rarely abroad. Yesterday, a long-haul Airbus took off from Helmut Schmidt Airport for a record flight and landed this afternoon.

On a mission in Antarctica

Only passengers who are part of an Antarctic mission were on board: scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and members of the crew of the icebreaker “Polarstern”. The direct flight from Fuhlsbüttel lasted 15 hours and 37 minutes and landed in the Falkland Islands off the South American coast after almost 14,000 kilometers. The final destination of the passengers is the Neumayer research station in Antarctica.

Due to corona pandemic, there are no scheduled flights

The reason for his unusual trip is the corona pandemic. In reality, the research team and crew members were supposed to fly to South Africa and take off from there by boat for Antarctica. Due to the current pandemic, there are currently no scheduled flights that are in question.

Scientists quarantined for two weeks

All members of the aircraft’s crew and mission participants had already entered quarantine two weeks earlier. At Fuhlsbüttel, there was additional access on board the Lufthansa plane, so that no one could get infected with the corona virus in the last few meters. Despite the difficult conditions, around 600 flight attendants applied for the position.

Guinness Book forbidden

By the way, the long-haul flight will not be included in the Guinness Book of Records: the record in this category is held by a flight on the Australian Qantas Line from New York to Sydney. This distance is another 2,000 kilometers.