In several months, Lufthansa will be operating one of its longest flights ever, and it’s a pretty special route!
In this post:
Lufthansa’s charter flight to the Falkland Islands
In March 2025, Lufthansa will be operating what’s easily one of the coolest charter flights we’ve seen. Specifically, Lufthansa will be flying between Munich (MUC) and Mount Pleasant (MPN) in the Falkland Islands. While the schedule remains subject to change, it’s currently as follows, with an outbound on March 10 and return on March 12 (thanks to AeroRotues for flagging this):
LH2572 Munich to Mount Pleasant departing 7:20AM arriving 7:00PM
LH2573 Mount Pleasant to Munich departing 7:00PM arriving 1:20PM (+1 day)
The 8,043-mile flight is blocked at 15hr40min from Munich and 14hr20min to Munich. Lufthansa will be using an Airbus A350-900 for this service, featuring 293 seats. However, the plane isn’t expect to be full, and will carry closer to 100 passengers.
For those of you not familiar with the Falkland Islands, this is a remote South Atlantic archipelago. There are just over 3,000 residents there, and it’s a British overseas territory. It’s also just a few hundred miles from Antarctica.
This is the second time that Lufthansa is operating such a route. The airline operated a similar flight in February 2021, as it flew from Hamburg to Mount Pleasant to Munich. The Hamburg to Mount Pleasant flight was just a little bit longer, and was the longest passenger flight that Lufthansa has operated in its history.
As you’d expect, special preparations have to be made for this flight, given the unique circumstances. This includes extra training for pilots via special electronic maps, an extra crew that includes technicians and ground staff for on-site landing and maintenance in the Falkland Islands, and more.
At least the logistics are a bit easier than they were for the 2021 trip, where a bunch of pandemic precautions had to be taken as well.
What’s the point of this Lufthansa charter flight?
Lufthansa is providing a charter for people who are taking the Polarstern research vessel to and from Antarctica. The passengers onboard will be split between scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and ship crew. Presumably in the other direction, the flight will be carrying those who are getting off the ship.
It’s interesting to see Lufthansa operating this service again. Back in the day, this kind of trip to get people to Antarctica would operate via Cape Town. However, in 2021 Lufthansa operated the charter flight due to the coronavirus situation in South Africa, to avoid those heading out getting sick.
It’s not publicly known exactly why Lufthansa is operating this service again, rather than passengers going via other means. After all, this is the first time in four years that such a route is being operated.
Bottom line
In March 2025, Lufthansa will be operating an ultra long haul flight between Munich and Mount Pleasant using an Airbus A350. This 8,000+ mile flight is being operated to get research teams and the ship crew closer to Antartica.
I’ve long been fascinated by the Falkland Islands, so I find this to be such a cool trip. If I were a Lufthansa crew I’d certainly volunteer for this cool experience, since this is a very special experience.
Is this charter flight awesome, or what?
malvinas! pirates!!
When the residents voted, only 3 people voted to degrade themselves, haha.
Try and take it again. You’ll enter the “find out” phase.
@neal z who administers the Territory? UK. It's Falkland Islands mate. Get it right.
The Falkland Islands are more than 1500 k from Antarctica
Please refer to these islands by their proper name: Las Malvinas.
A most ridiculous post designed to provoke a response to your ignorance.
The danger here is that your post is showing as a top post, and it implies Ben’s post (which I loved) is ridiculous.
Theres no such place as 'malvinas', please educate yourself before continuing.
It's the Falkland Islands, dumba**!
And they are British, not Argentinian.
"I’ve long been fascinated by the Falkland Islands,"... themselves boring AF.
Being surrounded by hundreds of penguins on these remote islands was one of the most amazing travel experiences in my life.
As a Lan Chile cabin crew, I flew the Punta Arenas - Mount Pleasant route a couple of times, in a A320.
It is a large air base, and the passengers were mainly British military and some Chilean residents.
I did it 20 years ago, but the flight still exists, it is weekly and I think it is the only regular flight that the Falklands has.
I’ve flown into MPA a number of times when I was stationed in the Falkland Islands during my time in the British Army. The flight route was then from RAF Brize Norton (BZN) to MPA with a 2 hour stop over on Ascension Island. The flight was operated by Royal Airforce L1011 Tristan’s and the journey time was about 18 hours 15 minutes including the stop over.
The RAF still operate this route on a weekly basis using RAF A330’s.
Some have been awarded the SAM with rosette.
Having been awarded the SAM with rosette, one has a comprehensive of the Islands.
Ben,
I applaud your interest in islands, however, if you have visited the likes of the Shetland Islands, the Outer Hebrides or Faroe Islands then these are similar to FI. Notwithstanding, without the penguin colonies.
How much does a charter like this cost?
Wouldn’t docking in S America, Puerto Williams or Ushuaia, and flying commercial be waaay cheaper for the passengers (and massive freight, presumably)?
I assume the passengers all have a lot of extra baggage & equipment and need the extra allowance they wouldn't get on commercial.
The Polarstern was used in an amazing Arctic research expedition in 2019-2020, called MOSAiC, drifting for a year in sea ice crossing the North Pole in a manner similar to Nansen’s Fram. There’s an excellent documentary film about it.
Wrong hemisphere me thinks?
Not wrong, just different and I expect Jack already knows that, but thanks anyway.