One of the great bucket list items for me is to go on one of the Antarctica flights. Each year, a company charters a plane from Qantas and does several services to the ice continent.
For years, these flights have been serviced by the Boeing 747-400. With their retirement from the Qantas fleet, people have been wondering which plane will take over the charter. Speculation was rife that they may be finished, but happily that is not the case.
Antarctica Flights Go Boeing 787
Perhaps not too surprisingly, the Antarctica flights will now be served by the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This will make for a very comfortable journey compared to the aircraft it replaces.
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- On Antarctica flights, seating is divided into various price points depending on the view
Since people are on board for around 12 hours, any increase in comfort will be welcome. Not that people sit in their seats a lot, as it is a bit of a party flight with passengers looking out windows to check out the world’s most remote place.
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- The seat rotation chart
To ensure everyone gets to see something, half way through the flight everyone changes seats. Those who don’t have windows don’t need to worry, as people are quite pleasant about letting others see out, plus there are windows in the doors of course!
Overall Thoughts
It is great to see the Antarctica flights are going ahead. According to the company web site, there will be seven trips this season. You can fly from Melbourne on 15 November and 31 December and Sydney on 22 November and 21 February 2021.
Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide see flights on 26 January, 7 February and 14 February 2021. That means all the major population centres in Australia get a flight, which is very nice.
Have you taken one of the Qantas flights to Antarctica before and how was it? What do you think of the aircraft change? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Jason Auch on Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.
Seating plans via Antarctica Flights.
I have a few “Bucket List” flights I would love to take and this is one them. Just to fly over the 7th continent would be amazing! (Though how much snow is fascinating would probably mitigated by the shear beauty of the topography). The flight itself could be on Ultra Long Range Twin Otter and that would be fine with me. Hell, it could even land on the ice if need be. 🙂
Hahahahaha! Now I’d like to see one of those Ultra Long Range Twin Otters!!! 😀 I agree, it would be an amazing thing to do indeed.
What’s the difference between business class and business class deluxe? I can’t find anything on Qantas’ website.
I assume deluxe benefits from better views as it isn’t over the wing
Exactly!
The seats are exactly the same and the Qantas web site would have no information, as it’s all just business class. On the charter, the company sells them differently based on the view.
A lot better view than on the C-17 I took there two years ago! A lot of the military flight fly all the way there but have to turn around due to weather at McMurdo. That’s a bit of warning to people who spend a lot of money on one of these flights.
Nice that you’ve been down there. I don’t believe any of the flights have been cancelled due to weather – as they don’t land there, it’s not much of a factor. Thanks for the comment!