Austrian Airlines Completes Historic 17+ Hour Flight to Sydney

The coronavirus is pushing people and industries to do things that they had not thought about before last month. One of those things is airlines flying repatriation flights to cities and countries they had never served before. This included yesterday’s flight from Austrian Airlines from Vienna to Sydney – an almost 18 hour journey.

Austrian Airlines Completes Historic 17+ Hour Flight

The “Spirit of Austria” has landed safely in Sydney after almost 18 hours of flight time. Truly a historic moment for us. Again huge thanks to our fantastic employees for this remarkable achievement! 🙏✈️🇦🇹 #WeAreAustrian https://t.co/UCKyua9gW1

— Austrian Airlines (@_austrian) March 30, 2020

This was the first time Austrian Airlines had flown this far and it was something special for them as well to land in Australia – a country which shares some similarity in names to Austria. This flight was accomplished aboard a Boeing 777-200ER and was flown to bring Austrian citizens home to Austria.

Austria meets Australia! 😎🇦🇹🇦🇺

Pictures: @SydneyAirport / Kurt Ams pic.twitter.com/DLCjxOAWVH

— Austrian Airlines (@_austrian) March 30, 2020

They are heading back tomorrow (March 31) via Penang so that will make a shorter time in the air per flight for the people flying back. Check this page to see the flight progress.

As I write this, Austrian is flying yet another repatriation flight of long distances from Vienna to Santiago, Chile. This is clocking in at just over 14 hours of a flight. You can track this flight here.

I have never been on such a flight but I can imagine that they are somewhat emotional flights for the passengers as all of them have the common goal of just getting back home. That combined with a sense of relief for what is familiar again.