Hi Fly Has ended its third season of Antarctic ice runway flights on a high and AirlineRatings.com was there. Here is our review.
For Greek Captain Adam Latsos, today’s landing on the blue ice runway of Wolf’s Fang in Queen Maud Land is his 15th since Portuguese wet-lease specialist Hi Fly pioneered regular widebody flights on Airbus A340s to Antarctica in 2021.
Visibility is fairly poor, clouds only break at 4,800 feet and below, and there are very few contrasts. With no ILS or other ground-based guidance, this is visual flying by hand, and it’s hard to even spot the three-kilometre-long runway, as there are only small flags marking it in the eternal ice. Nevertheless, Adam Latsos lands on the spot. “I’m a little proud, as this is the first time I put down the aircraft exactly where these black flags mark the touchdown point,” he says while doing the ten-minute-long backtrack on the runway to the apron area.
Before passengers can step down onto the ice and cargo be unloaded, Latsos makes sure that he only turns off three of his four engines on the ground. “We keep number one running the entire time here, just to make sure we can re-ignite the engines when we want to leave again, plus we leave the APU running,” explains Latsos.
Hi Fly has its special procedures well established now at the end of the second full season of flying weekly on average to the only privately operated ice runway on the continent. It’s providing the only regular widebody airliner passenger service open to anyone who pays at least US$15,950, that’s how much a one-night-stint to Antarctica costs.
Here is a video of the experience.
The seventh continent has been the last unconquered frontier of civil aviation, and rightly so, many would argue. Now a British polar pioneer and world record-holder wants to demonstrate that small-scale, upmarket tourism can be established sustainably in Antarctica. “If tourism is done responsibly and in small numbers, it has an incredibly light amount of footprint and it could have a huge impact for good,” says Patrick Woodhead, founder of tour company White Desert based in Cape Town, South Africa. Using solar energy, sustainable aviation fuel and generating its own green hydrogen in Antarctica, the company thrives to bring sustainability to new levels from next season, starting in November.
Enabling his new polar ventures is a 26-year-old widebody aircraft, an Airbus A340-300 covering the 4,200km from Cape Town to the eternal ice in a bit over five hours during Antarctic summer from November to February, when the sun never sets in the South polar region. About 15 round trips have been operated each season and the service is surprisingly reliable, given the uncertainties of polar flying conditions. “We have pioneered this together with White Desert, we are learning and getting better with each flight”, says Captain Adam Latsos, one of the most experienced fliers on this unusual operation. Preparing the runway for a single A340 landing takes up to a week of preparation by crews using Pistenbully groomers, usually seen on ski slopes. White Desert flies not only about 220 tourists each season but also provides transport and logistics to support Antarctic research stations of eight countries, carrying an additional 250 scientists and personnel from Cape Town.
Widebody airliners are still rare in the Antarctic, usually used only on special missions ferrying people and goods to and from research stations. Norse Atlantic Airlines recently pioneered the first Boeing 787 landing in Antarctica to supply Norwegian Troll station, but these flights are one-offs and not open to anyone willing to pay hefty fares.
Small-scale expedition-type tourism by air to the Antarctic has been offered for some time, flying on noisy Russian Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft that are still operating from Cape Town as well. But White Desert elevates the experience to an entirely new level. Their Hi Fly A340 is still outfitted with the cabin of former owner Emirates, including lie-flat seats in First and Business Class. The huge aircraft never takes more than 70 passengers, so it never gets crowded inside.
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In Antarctica, the operator runs two ultra-luxury lodges, the first accommodation of this kind on the continent. Each caters for up to twelve guests only, including designer modules to sleep in, plus fine dining and wines. That of course doesn’t come cheap: A whole week all-inclusive starts at US$68,500 per person.
White Desert started bringing clients down to the ice in Gulfstream 650 business jets, and they are still coming to Wolf’s Fang occasionally with VVIP guests. But Woodhead never regretted the jump from a small biz jet to a 267-seat airliner. “It’s a lot safer to go on the A340 with return range fuel, so we can go all the way to Antarctica, circle for three hours and fly back again if needed. Our pilots never reach a point-of-safe-return position,” unlike the Russian Ilyushins. “Four engines on this aircraft are super important, if one engine went tech, we are still able to depart,” Woodhead points out. “We would not take an A330 or Boeing 787 or 777, as those twin engines are vast, and if you have an issue, imagine taking that engine off in Antarctica and changing it over, that’ll be logistically horrendous. On the A340 we could still depart on three engines as a technical flight to Cape Town and fix the problem there.”
Especially the enormous cargo capacity of the A340 is a big bonus. “This hold is always full with the amount of scientific material we are bringing in, the amount of food and the defueling, we don’t ever waste a kilogram on this plane.” Defueling at Wolf’s Fang practically means the A340 acts as a tanker, as all ground-based activities at the stations currently run on Jet A1 fuel, before being replaced by more sustainable energy sources soon. Up to 18 tons of fuel sometimes are fed from the aircraft into the fuel system at Wolf’s Fang, much more efficient than hauling fuel over 400 km from the coast, where it gets delivered by ship otherwise.
“The efficiencies of using the A340 are insane, for kind of double the money of a single Gulfstream rotation, instead of twelve people and a little bit of cargo, we bring up to 70 people, 20 tons of cargo plus delivering fuel,” enthuses Woodhead. During the 2023/24 season, the operation has brought about 250 members of station personnel and scientists plus about 220 tourists to Wolf’s Fang, from where they are flown to their final destinations by two BT-67 Turbo Basler aircraft and one Twin Otter.
NOTE: Andreas Spaeth was a guest on this Antarctic flight
