AUCKLAND TO DOHA SERVICE BY QATAR AIRWAYS CLAIMS NEW RECORD
(Posted 06th February 2017)
Qatar Airways’s flights QR 920/921 between Doha and Auckland / New Zealand will claim new world record for the longest scheduled commercial flight, when the Boeing B777-200LR will return to the airline’s hub airport Hamad International in the morning.
The outbound flight was airborne for some 16 hours and 10 minutes – arriving 15 minutes ahead of ETA – while the return flight, which is now underway, is estimated to take 17 hours and 30 minutes due to prevailing head winds. In both directions does the aircraft cross over 10 time zones. On both flights will two cockpit crews be on duty, i.e. four pilots instead of the usual two, to ensure that the extra distance can be covered safely with a rested crew.
Qatar Airways wrestled this record from rival Emirates, which had previously held it with their flights to Auckland, due to the longer distance from Doha, some 342 kilometres north of Dubai.
Notably could passengers watch the two movie trilogies which made New Zealand popular with people around the world, the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, as time will be enough, both ways, to watch these epic films which won much acclaim besides plenty of Oscars. Both film series were shot on location in New Zealand and prompted tens of thousands of Tolkien fans to travel there.
Travelers on Qatar Airways from the airline’s East African gateways Entebbe, Kigali, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar can all connect in Doha to Auckland and experience staying for a record time in the air as the inaugural flight rotation is now nearing completion.
The airline group’s Chief Executive Officer Mr. Akbar Al Baker is expected to be in Auckland for the formal launch celebrations on Tuesday. New Zealand’s who is who, from politics to business and of course the travel trade will on the occasion raise their glasses to the new services linking one of the world’s most remote countries to the rest of the globe.
