Virgin Australia has managed to beat the longest flight time set by rival Qantas in October last year.
On Monday a Virgin Australia 777-300ER, registration VH-VPD, landed in Paris on a flight from Auckland, New Zealand via Hong Kong. The flight was a repatriation flight organised by the French Government. On Tuesday the 777 took off on a ferry flight from Charles de Gaulle at 09:52 local time and landed in the Queensland capital of Brisbane on Wednesday. The flying time of 19 hours and 45 minutes beat the Qantas London-Sydney time set in October last year by 26 minutes. The Qantas flight was 483km (300 miles) longer, however.
The circle distance between Paris and Brisbane is 16,532km (10,273 miles), but the actual flight distance was 18,209km (11,315 miles). News Ltd reports the aircraft took off with 144 tonnes of fuel and landed with 6 tonnes remaining.
The route was decided by factors like Enroute Adequate Airports along the flight path. News reports the plotted journey was Paris, Rome (LIRF), Bahrain (OBBI), Colombo (VCBI), Singapore (WSSS), Darwin (YPDN), Alice Springs (YBAS), Townsville (YBTL) and then Brisbane (YBBN).
