Your Opportunity To Flightsee Around Antarctica On Qantas

How is the northern most hotel in Antarctica when it's the most southerly place

Those prices are in AUD, so in USD, it's about 25% less.

This is so cool thanks for sharing!

What a waste of money for anything but a window seat...

What's the point of paying for a center seat? It's a widebody, how can you look outside the window from the middle of the plane? What a waste of money.

I think it’s a waste of money. Its like saying ‘I visited New York City’ because you flew over the top of it one time. It would be such a tease. I can understand the appeal of actually going on an expedition there because that is an adventure and you would actually be seeing things up close but paying thousands of dollars to sip champagne looking out the window and then saying ‘ive visited Antarctica’ is not for me.

You have to do the cruise at some point. It is pricey ($12-16k/person) but absolutely the most fantastic trip you could go on. I did One Ocean's Antarctic Circle cruise last year and easily the highlight of my travels so far.

$1,199 for a 12 hour flight with no view that takes you back to where you started.

Uh? What's the point of that?

What's the mileage earning on this one? 😉

Bunch of negative Nancies on here. The strategy is to book the cheapest middle seat, and get up as quickly as possible to find a window in a galley or exit row. The site specifically says all communal areas are free game.

I would looooooove to do this, but something about not setting foot on Antarctica cheapens it a bit for me.

These excursion flights, to an area where the weather can change drastically in no time at all, make me a bit uncomfortable. I remember when Air New Zealand was operating a series of 'sightseeing' flights to Antarctica, the 14th of which - in zero visibility - flew into the side of Mount Erebus, on 28 November 1979. All 239 passengers and 20 crewmembers aboard the DC10 were killed.

I'd just say that the Perth flight is actually something people who live there are super passionate about. The company who put it on (it's obviously not Qantas after all) donate a significant portion of the profit to a charity called Telethon which aims to help fund research and better lives of sick children. So whilst it's not cheap, you get to see something immensely cool and feel good about consuming a planes worth of free booze because they support a charity with this flight.

Really want to take one of these flights. It's nice that you actually switch seats but, even more so, is they have lecturers/scientists/explorers on board that explain to you what's you are seeing and what's going on.

I have been lucky enough to have done one of these flights, and still remember it as one of the highlights of my life, there are no words that can descibe the sheer beauty of Antartica from the air.

A few points, seats are swapped halfway through the flight, eg. Two window seats swap to aisle and outer middle seat. You are free to walk around the cabin, as you are over the ice for at least 3 hours, and it is a party atmosphere on board, everyone is friendly and enjoying the experience. Everyone lets other passengers get some window time and photos galore, there is only so much ice you can look at in 3 hours. The air in Antartica is 3 times clearer than the mainland, no pollution, and you can see the razor sharp edge of the mountains. The plane goes to a lower altitude over the ice, and you can see huge glaciers everywhere, mountains and sea ice and icebergs, we even flew over a French base. As the air is clear, you feel ike you are literally on top of the ice. Qantas have about 26 different routes they can select from, do they choose a route which provides the best weather conditions for each trip. They also have people on board who provide talks about the continent.
My recommendation is to purchase the two centre seats, friends have since done this, and they had the best experience for a reasonable cost.

For ice class I better be getting an eight ball of cocaine. At least it will keep me awake the entire flight, but I may get chatty and want to talk to the peons in back who saved up for years to *fly* around Antarctica! Ugh POOR!

My dad and I took a 10 day cruise in Nov 2011 from Ushuaia to Antarctica for $3800/each, and while I doubt you can find that price today, I bet if you look hard enough you can find something for $5k-$6k.

In our 10 days we spent 2 days each way crossing the Drake Passage, and 6 cruising around the Antarctic Peninsula making about 2 landings a day (will vary depending on weather).

Find a boat with less than 100 passengers as that's the limit of how many can go ashore at one time, and if you're going all the way down there you don't want to not make it on land or waiting in line for people to return so you can go.

Graeme, Thanks for the great review of flight like this, and the suggestion for middle seats. It does sound like a blast and I'm sure you'd meet some incredible people even if it is overpriced for most seats in my opinion.

Yes, as Matt says, leaving from Argentina is a lot cheaper than Australia or New Zealand. You can get last minute cruise deals between $3500-5000. For 10 days that's not horrible. About half the regular price.

Qantas has been operating flyover flight for years, but it's flyover, not actually visiting. You won't be able to experience the most amazing experiences in Antarctica. When we did Antarctic cruise with Ponant early this years, all the most fond memories are things we experience physically. Like standing on a floating ice sheet, watch and hear glacier falls into the sea, getting chase by sea lion pups, having penguins come up to you and poke your pants with their beaks, zodiac cruising between and go under icebergs, get really up close and personal with the whales, standing in a king penguin colonies of 40k pairs and hear their sounds and smell. None of these experiences will be there with flyover flight, and after the flight, you still have not set foot on Antarctica. I never understand why some people take the flyover flight, especially you can't even say you've been to Antarctica, you can only say you've flown over it.

Did anyone else think of ANZ 901 when they saw this?