Today we’re flying a private A340 from Cape Town to Antarctica! Wolf’s Fang Runway, to be exact [WFR/AT98 – coordinates 71º 32′ 00” S 8º 50′ 00” E]. It’s the only privately operated ice runway in Antarctica and it’s actually built on top of glacial ice, so the whole process of landing an A340-300 there is fascinating. As are all the logistics around this flight, run by White Desert, a luxury travel company specializing in trips to the 7th continent based out of Cape Town.
It’s an incredible day of flying as we leave Africa behind and fly south for 5.5 hours before seeing the incredible ice of Antarctica.
Check out White Desert and more about what the offer here: https://white-desert.com
The aircraft in question is 9H-TQY, operated by Hi Fly Malta and Captained by the famous Carlos Mirpuri, who is also Vice Chairman of the Hi Fly Group. We get a lot of time to admire the aircraft and to speak to Carlos about the operation. We’ll show you the ground experience at Cape Town, the aircraft interior (ex-Emirates, and it shows), the White Desert service, and much more. And we have the landing from multiple angles.
We’ll be publishing a series from Gabe Leigh about his weeklong trip to Antarctica, including more flights internally, so stay tuned.
Grateful for the use of supporting footage from the legendary Panda Beting, who was onboard the flight, and from Andrew MacDonald with White Desert, who captured our landing from the ground.
