Melbourne, Australia - An Airbus A340-300 from the Portuguese charter specialist Hi Fly broke a new record connecting Montevideo to Melbourne with a 16 hour flight.
The flight was carried out by the Hi Fly Airbus A340-300 with registration 9H-SUN on April 11. 217 passengers, of which 128 were Corona positive, were transported from Montevideo-Carrasco in Uruguay to Melbourne International Airport in Australia, a distance of 6662 nautical miles (12,338 kilometers). It's an unusual distance for an Airbus A340 jet.
The plane had been rented by Aurora Expeditions to repatriate Australian passengers and crew from the cruise ship Greg Mortimer, which stayed off Montevideo for two weeks after the discovery of the first coronavirus cases.
Hi Fly has a special flight set up for its planes and its crew members to safely repatriate passengers whether they are infected or not during the COVID-19 pandemic.
#HiFly #A340 #9HSUN makes history flying 16h16m from Montevideo to Melbourne, a route of 6700 nm repatriating Australians.— Hi Fly (@hifly_airline) April 12, 2020
The flight took off on the 11th April at 4:44 UTC and landed in Melbourne at 21:00 UTC.#RepatriationFlight #hiflyairline #uruguay #covi̇d19 pic.twitter.com/KaaY0snr7H
