Issue 269: To the Ice

Flying Australia’s Antarctic Airlink A319 to the ice

Eighty-one years ago a ski-equipped black Lockheed Vega took off from the sea ice on the Antarctic Peninsula on the first flight over the frozen continent. Its pilot, the then famous Australian adventurer Sir Hubert Wilkins, could never have imagined that one day a passenger jet would run a weekly service to a runway bearing his name carved out of solid blue ice on a large glacier.

These weekly flights of an Airbus 319-115 have transformed the logistics of the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD). The journey to its largest Antarctic research base, Casey Station was once an infrequent two-week ocean voyage across the wildest ocean in the world. Now the weekly 4.5 hour flights from Hobart enable personnel to swap in and out faster, effectively increasing the number and productivity of Antarctic scientists and also reducing the environmental footprint of ship transport.