Qantas Link is gradually replacing its Boeing 717’s fleet. But the retire flight is a real adventure.
All of QantasLink’s 20 Boeing 717s will be gradually replaced by 29 fuel efficient Airbus A220 aircraft as part of the “Project Winton” fleet renewal program.
The airline has already started to retire several Boeing 717s such as VH-NXI in June, and VH-NXM few days ago.
The 22 year-old aircraft VH-NXM has just arrived in California after 13 flights during 9 days!
The aircraft departed Canberra on 8 September for a very long journey to California’s desert.
Here are the flight legs:
- Canberra to Alice Springs, Australia (8 September)
- Alice Springs to Darwin, Australia
- Darwin to Surabaya, Indonesia
- Surabaya to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Kuala Lumpur to Bangalore, India
- Bangalore to Muscat, Oman
- Muscat to Hurghada, Egypt
- Hurghada to Sofia, Bulgaria
- Sofia to Stavanger , Norway
- Stavanger to Reykjavík, Iceland
- Reykjavík to Goose Bay, Canada
- Goose Bay to International Falls, USA
- International Falls to Victorville, USA (17 September)
It took almost 40 hours total flight times, landing in 11 countries for a single 717.
The aircraft has flown on regional and domestic routes for QantasLink for the past 15 years. All up, it has completed more than 29,000 flights and safely carried more than 1.6 million customers for both Qantas and Jetstar over two decades.