MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lufthansa to repeat historic trip to Falklands

The flight’s crew duty period lasted a mammoth 20 days. Photo: Lufthansa

Lufthansa will on Tuesday repeat its longest-ever non-stop flight as it flies an A350 from Hamburg to Mount Pleasant Airport in the Falkland Islands, according to aviation industry website Simple Flying. The German flag carrier first flew the route in January 2021 with a flight clocking in at 15 hours and 36 minutes.

Much like the original flight, the upcoming flight will support the Antarctic operations of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and allow research vessel Polar Stern to complete a crew change.

All individuals onboard the flight will have undergone a quarantine period prior to departing Germany, and the flight is expected to leave from an unused part of the Hamburg airport to reduce the risk of contracting Covid at the airport.

The logistics of the flight are somewhat unique: the Lufthansa A350 will be required to take a small crew of maintenance staff and catering supplies for the out and return journeys, and will also take all the rubbish generated during the flight back to Germany.

Thomas Jahn, Lufthansa fleet captain and project manager for the Falklands project, told Simple Flying: “With the second flight to the Falkland Islands, we are not only pleased to be able to support the AWI’s polar research expedition, but also to make an important contribution to further research into the Earth’s magnetic field… We have already been supporting climate research projects for more than 25 years now.”

The flight is scheduled to depart Hamburg at 21:30 on Tuesday evening, and will arrive back in Munich on April 3.