COVID-19 unusual flights (II): ultra-long haul routes

Pîcture: (C) Austrian Airlines_Florian Schmidt

If, on a previous piece, we dealt with the matter of the special cargo flights, often using the passenger cabin of airliners, prompted by the Coiv-19 epidemic, on this follow-up post we aim to track some of the unusually long flights some airlines are operating, mostly to bring back home nationals of their respective countries that have been left stranded due to the closure of borders and the cancellation of regular flights.

As was widely reported, as a result of the emergency situation, Air Tahiti Nui has performed the longest flight in the world (that, oddly, it happens to be a domestic one!) with a reduced payload, as it eliminated the regular mid-way stopover at LAX on its route between Paris and Papeete, French Polynesia. These flights are deemed necessary for “territorial continuity” and to maintain the link between metropolitan France and this far-flung overseas territory. The return flight stops at Point a Pitre (PTP), on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which is also a French territory.

Air Serbia, in turn, is flying its longest flight ever, from Belgrade to Los Angeles, as reported by Serbian aviation portal Tangosix. This is a flight operated on behalf of the US government,in order to repatriate some 80 American citizens that have been left stranded in the Balkans.

And so is doing Swiss, which has sent one of its Boeing 777s to Santiago de Chile to pick up stranded Swiss nationals, on the airline’s longest flight ever. But, far from being the only unusual long haul flight operated by Swiss in the context of this pandemic, the airline has been flying special missions to other countries, such as Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina and the Philippines.

In cases such as Peru, the evacuation operation has even included the organization of Swiss-flagged bus convoys to gather the travellers in different points around the country and take them by land to the airport for the special flight.

On 31st March, for example, Swiss operated to Manila and Cebu, bringing back to Europe over 300 people.

The Swiss government has actually set up a dedicated website where you can follow all these evacuations.

Fellow Lufthansa Group member Austrian Airlines is also using a Boeing 777 on a 17-hour mission, flying from Vienna to Sydney and back to bring back Austrian citizens to Europe. This is, of course, a record to the Austrian airline.

Wizz Air, in turn, is operating several rescue flights to the US, with refuelling stopover in Keflavik, Iceland. This is possibly not what they had in mind when they ordered their A321neos because of the many new longer route options they provided!